The dish was, apparently, a huge hit at the banquet, where it was washed down with Krug champagne (which, at least, is genuinely French) and more or less disappeared from view after that. My best guess is that Hume just wanted to find a way of making the cold cream sauce come to life and decided to be innovative.

Nor was Britain the multicultural society that it is today. It couldn’t have been a tribute to the Empire because by 1953, India had already been independent for six years. Why curry powder? The simple explanation is that they did not know much about Indian spices in those days (nor were they readily available in London), but they knew what curry powder was. What made the dish unusual was the cold sauce, which was made from chopped onion, tomato puree, red wine, bay leaf, apricot puree, lemon, cream and - wait for it - curry powder. Hume opted for a cold chicken dish that did not have to be cooked à la minute. The banquet was a luncheon in the Great Hall of Westminster School in London where the kitchen facilities were limited. In fact, the dish was created largely from scratch by Hume to fit very special circumstances. It was called Poulet Reine Elizabeth (“Chicken Queen Elizabeth”) and it was suggested that it was an update of a dish created for George V’s Silver Jubilee. Though the banquet was held in England and both Rosemary Hume and the Queen were mostly British, the dish was given a French name because in that era, all fancy food had to sound French. (PRACHAYA ROEKDEETHAWEESAB /SHUTTERSTOCK)

King Charles’s Coronation will take place on May 6. The original Coronation Chicken was invented in 1953 by Rosemary Hume and her students at the Le Cordon Bleu school in London, to be served at a banquet for dignitaries who had come to London to attend the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. I loved the irony (“a momentous event in which about 20 of us in India are deeply invested”) and I remembered the dish well because I had the mixed fortune (misfortune?) to go to a (minor) English public school where they served Coronation Chicken. “As King Charles’s Coronation approaches - a momentous event in which about 20 of us in India are deeply invested - could you consider writing on Coronation Chicken and what sort of dish would need to be invented to reflect the multicultural Britain of 2023?” For King Charles’s Coronation, the Palace has gone with the Coronation Quiche containing milk, double cream, cheddar cheese, spinach and broad beans. Last month, my friend, Ashok Malik, the writer and think-tanker (is that even a word?) messaged me with an idea for Rude Food.

Jubilee cookbook