I thought I’d check on the menu for recent royal weddings. When Princess Elizabeth married Philip in 1947, it was considered proper to serve this Anglo/Frenchy menu:

Filet of Sole Mountbattan

Perdreau en casserole

Haricots Verts

Pommes Noisettes

Salad Royale

Bombe Glacee Elizabeth

Friandises

Dessert

Café

The wedding cake was 2.5 metres tall and topped with a silver sculpture of  St. George and the Dragon.

A Google search for the wedding breakfast for Prince Charles and Di reveals a “1981 a traditional royal wedding breakfast, where guests dined on gold plates filled with brill in lobster sauce, chicken breasts garnished with lamb mousse, and strawberries with Cornish cream washed down with claret and port before the groom brandished his ceremonial sword to cut the first slice of a five-tiered wedding cake adorned with emblems from his Naval days, sugar doves, and topped with a garden of confectionary roses, lilies of the valley, fuchsias and orchids accenting an ornamental “C” and “D.”

Naturally, this led me to ponder the declaration made by Prince William and his bride that they wanted none of all this pomp and circumstance and instead plan to wash their own dishes and do their own vacuuming.

Further research leads to the startling discovery that American chefs are coming up with their own ideas of what would appropriate wedding breakfast fare. I think Marcus Samuelsson is on the ball with Fish and Chips. Poor Rocco DiSpirito misses the point (again) suggesting White Truffle Risotto. Nonchef Paula Dean bizarrely proposes Banana Pudding which exhibits no knowledge of culinary history whatso…

I, however think, as always, I have the answer. I echo the words of W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) who wisely noted “To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.” This means, for a thoroughly modern couple there should be roaming trucks offering the roaring crowds what we Brits love most: egg and chips, egg, bacon and chips, egg, bacon, sausage and chips, sausage, bacon, egg and chips and cold toast. Tea. And rhubarb.

And for dessert, we must honor our very own British culinary wizard: Heston Blumenthal, whose bacon and egg ice cream will surely beat the band and prove to be a welcome ending for the royal wedding feast.

There you have it.

Long may they reign.

Japanese Sushi Chef Ken Kawasumi with his Sushi Obama creation

The mid-term elections are fast approaching. I’ve been wondering why candidates running for high political office seem to feel it is necessary to eat what the locals eat. I suppose it’s a way of establishing solidarity with the voters.

When politicians fly to Buffalo they make a big deal about eating a wing. They become “ein Buffalo-er,” which is the next best thing to being ein Berliner or a Philadelphian — when they gather together together to scarf down a cheesesteak.

It’s the same deal when we declare our brotherhood by eating a hot pastrami sandwich.

Toss down a couple of belts of hard liquor and the world applauds. There’s nothing like beer to solidify a candidate’s credentials. Wine is another thing altogether.

JFK and Jackie O. received high marks for their elegant state dinners. That was then, though.

Eat French food today and the other side will make a mockery of you. Admitting to enjoying chardonnay and arugula has become shorthand for a lack of patriotism.

French food is only O.K. only when it comes to fries. Fried is probably the best bet for almost everything, especially chicken.  KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is wildly popular throughout the world, or many parts of the world. Forget about quiche.

Throw a barbecue on your million acre ranch and what are you?  Why, you are a man: A REAL MAN!  A red-bloodied American man.

Declare your favorite food to be caribou stew or moose burger and you pass muster in certain necks of certain woods. Right on!

You are pretty safe if you can eat whatever is offered to eat with your hands, or if worst comes to worst, a plastic fork is sometimes allowed (or forgiven).

Mention you are a vegetarian and you’ll be confessing to ‘wimpitude’. (Hitler was a vegetarian.)

Pastor Rick Warren recently pondered whether an atheist, even a non-practicing atheist, could become the Commander in Chief. He didn’t reflect about whether a vegetarian had a prayer.

If I was a campaign adviser I’d suggest that my client stay clear of all cheese except Velveeta or when campaigning in Wisconsin.

It’s odd that desserts don’t carry any weight in this public display of togetherness chomping.

While some foods are considered cool, others pose a problem. For instance, sushi would have been taboo in years past. Now sushi is sold at Wal-Mart, in supermarkets and food courts everywhere.

Sushi is the new pizza. It’s become a kind of upscale fish finger.

The galloping popularity of sushi opens up splendid new career opportunities for chefs. Sushi culinary schools have opened in California, and we can confidently expect to see more MASA restaurant derivatives. MASA in New York occupies a place in the restaurant stratosphere where dinner for two can cost as much as $1,000 before tax and gratuities.

Fish is gold.

Fish ‘n rice clearly occupy a far more exalted status than fish ‘n chips, so this seems like a fine time to sashay into sushi and sashimi.

Blueprint of the first dishwasher, approximately 1850

The unforeseen consequences of the introduction of the dishwasher at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair is the loss of intimacy between mothers and daughters.

It was a time to talk: when Mom washed the dishes, one daughter dried them,  the other put them away — and the son went to the bathroom.