What does Charles’s quiche tell us about the modern monarchy?

As a lover of coronation chicken, Will Gore thinks the King has missed a trick with his spinach tart

The dish isn’t novel but let’s face it – it never stood a chance (Getty)

Much has been said and written about the coronation quiche over the last few days; not all of it positive. But at least we now know the answer to the age-old question about which came first: the egg or the chicken. And whichever way you look at it, that original coronation dish of Poulet Reine Elizabeth surely has the edge over its 2023 counterpart.

For one thing, coronation chicken was – at least relatively speaking – a novel dish, created by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume of the Cordon Bleu Cookery School especially for the occasion. Yes, there might have been a hint of cold korma about it, and of course people had eaten meat with fruit forever. Ultimately, though, it was a new concoction and even had a hint of the exotic to liven up drab post-war Britain.

By contrast, the coronation quiche is not original in the least. Broad beans might not be the most obvious of fillings, but spinach and tarragon are classics, and one imagines beans of every variety have featured in quiches over the years. Not only is it not novel, however, but is actively old-hat. In fact, the dish’s reputation is broadly one of naffness. Quiches are redolent of Seventies and Eighties picnics, and of desperation snacking at motorway service stations, and of the last uneaten item at the end of a cricket tea. As an institution that must embrace permanent evolution, I fear the monarchy has made a misstep with its choice for next month’s “Coronation Big Lunch”.