We're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Royal Wedding, and whether or not you're planning to get up at the crack of dawn to celebrate the impending nuptials of Prince Harry and our own Meghan Markle, there's a good chance that if you've clicked on this post, you're planning to celebrate May 19th in some special way. The Royal Wedding is ripe for viewing party fodder, after all. And if you're planning to have a viewing party, you might want to come up with some royal wedding-themed foods to serve your guests.
Obviously, the Royal Wedding is in La Belle England, so much of the party menu should consist of Very British Foods. These include tea sandwiches (don't forget to cut off the crusts!), pints of ale (good for morning!), Ploughman lunches, scones, actual tea, jellied eels, little chocolates shaped like Paddington, and fish and chips, sorry to your roommates. As you can see, my understanding of British food has been derived exclusively from the one time I went to London as a child, from Harry Potter, and from the little English store near my grandparents' house in Upstate New York, so my apologies to basically everyone for my complete misunderstanding of your culture.
1Scones
Scones are the National Food of Britain, or so I have surmised from repeat marathons of The Great British Baking Show. They are not quite as sweet as cookies, nor quite as soft as bread. They taste best with clotted cream. Scones are the absolute tops, don't @ me, and you can buy them at Starbucks.
2Tea Sandwiches
While I prefer a baguette stuffed with ham and turkey for my sustenance, tea sandwiches are a more elegant way to enjoy the world's greatest food. Use thin slabs of white bread, fill them with egg salad, sliced cucumbers, and very thin meats, cut the crusts and slice them diagonally and voila! A tea sandwich. Your guests will appreciate being very mildly sated.
3Room-Temperature Beer
Here are two fun facts about beer in England: unlike in the States, it doesn't come chilled (unless it's a lager) and it's topped with foam (or a "head," as it's called). This sounds questionable, but actually it works — cold temperatures can kill beer's flavor, and the foam helps with your digestion. Serve this to your friends at 7 a.m. and they will be impressed, and also day drunk.
4Liquorice Allsorts
If you've never had Liquorice allsorts, you are truly missing out. These bad boys are a mix of sugar, coconut, jelly, and gelatine, and they are delicious. I ate an entire bag of Liquorice allsorts (purchased at Marks & Spencers) on the bus to Stonehenge when I was 11, and I became very violently ill. It was the best day of my life, AND YOU CAN TOO.
5Digestive Biscuits
Once upon a time, people believed digestive biscuits would aid consumers in, well, digesting food. Really, though they're just cookies, and very tasty ones — digestives are crunchy, dry, and not super sweet, and are excellent when dunked in tea or coffee.
6Fruit Cake
Fruit cake is a celebratory dish in England, and typically is served at weddings, holidays, and other special events. Obviously, the royal wedding is a special event HERE, and thus, we'll have to break out the fruit cake. There are some good recipes on Allrecipes, should you need some encouragement.
7Ploughman's Lunches
This is 100 percent not a typical celebratory meal, but it is my favorite pub food, and therefore it's getting on this list. A ploughman's lunch consists of the following: bread, cheese, and onions, usually served with butter and pickles, occasionally accompanied by ham and hard boiled eggs, and often served with a mug of ale. It's basically a heartier, un-fancy cheese plate, and I love the heck out of it. Bread? Good! Ham? Also good! Cheese? Very good! Ale? The best! My god, I love it so much.
