Of French cookery the Prince Regent was during his life a great admirer, and no one in his Majesty’s dominions, or out of it, kept a more recherché or expensive table. But the Coronation Dinner at Westminster Hall, in 1822, was a monster banquet merely, and it gives no indication whatever of the king’s more refined taste in cookery. As a curiosity I print the bill of fare of this great feast.
Bill of Fare of the Banquet given by George IV. on the 19th of July, 1822, in Westminster Hall, on the day of his Coronation.
Hot Dishes.—160 tureens of soup; 80 of turtle; 40 of rice; 40 of vermicelli; 80 dishes of turbot; 40 of trout; 40 of salmon; 80 dishes of venison; 40 of roast beef; 3 basins of beef; 40 dishes of mutton and veal; 160 dishes of vegetables, including potatoes, peas, and cauliflowers; 480 sauce-boats; 240 lobsters; 120 of butter; 120 of mint.
Cold Dishes.—80 of braised ham; 80 savory pies; 80 of geese à la daube, two in each dish; 80 of savory cakes; 80 of braised beef; 80 of braised capons, two in each dish; 1190 side dishes of various kinds; 320 of mounted pastry; 400 of jellies and creams; 80 of lobsters; 80 of crayfish; 161 of roast fowls; 80 of house-lamb.
Total Quantities.—Beef, 7442 lbs.; veal, 7133 lbs.; mutton, 2474 lbs.; house-lamb, 20 quarters; legs of ditto, 20; lamb, 5 saddles; grass-lamb, 55 quarters; lamb sweetbreads, 160; cow-heels, 389; calves’-feet, 400; suet, 250 lbs.; geese, 160; pullets and capons, 720; chickens, 1610; fowls for stock, 520; bacon, 1730 lbs.; lard, 550 lbs.; butter, 912 lbs.; eggs, 8400.
The Wines.—Champagne, 100 doz.; burgundy, 20 doz.; claret, more than 200 doz.; hock, 50 doz.; moselle, 50 doz.; Madeira, 50 doz.; sherry and port, about 350 doz.; iced punch, 100 gallons. The champagne, hock, and moselle, were iced before being placed upon the table.
The expenses of this banquet and the coronation together amounted to the sum of 238,238l. As a contrast to this, it may be also mentioned that the banquet and coronation of his Majesty William IV., which took place September, 1831, did not cost 50,000l.
It may be mentioned that, at the coronation of George IV., the glut of fruit was unprecedented; a gentleman of Lambeth cut sixty ripe pine-apples on the occasion; and that many hundreds of pines remarkable for size and flavour came from distant parts of the country; one from Lord Cawdor’s weighed 10 lbs., and formed part of the royal banquet.
The taste of the royal gourmand will be more fully disclosed by a bill of fare of one of the private dinners given at the Pavilion, Brighton, in 1817.
Carème was at that period for eight months chef de cuisine to the Prince Regent of England (afterwards George IV.), and for seven months of that period the chef says he never quitted his post. During these seven months, if we are to believe this celebrated cuisinier, his Royal Highness never felt any attack of gout, whereas before the cookery was so highly spiced (aromatisée) that the royal gourmand was tormented with it both day and night. Here is one of those menus of thirty-two entrées, given at the Pavilion, Brighton, on the 8th of Jan., 1817, which gave no gout:—