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GLOUCESTER, England – The coronation of King Charles III and Camilla, the queen consort, on Saturday will involve many of the same ancient traditions that have been followed for nearly a thousand years. But a few things are new: The royal horse-drawn carriage will have air conditioning. There will be an official coronation emoji issued by Buckingham Palace.
And, in a break with eight centuries of culinary tradition, the pie for the newly crowned king has been baked not with lampreys – slimy fish, jaws, eel-like with one nostril – but with pork.
In a ceremony Thursday in the city of Gloucester, about 100 miles northwest of London, Mayor Howard Hyman presented the cake to the viceroy. Instead of real lampreys, whose number in Britain has dwindled, this pie is decorated with two lampreys meals. The third pastry lamprey has fallen.
Charles’ representative, Lord-Lieutenant Edward Gillespie, accepted the pie on behalf of the king and donated it to a local charity focused on hunger. He said the tradition has been renewed. “It is not proper to give a lamprey to anybody,” said Lord-Lieutenant Gillespie after the ceremony. “He’s not happy,” he said of the king.
While some in Gloucester lamented the change in tradition, many said they were substituting pork for lamprey to reflect changing tastes.
“I don’t really like what’s on the cake,” Alan Myatt, the town crier, said at the ceremony, which was attended by about 100 people at the Folk of Gloucester museum, a building dating back to the 1500s. “The most important thing is that we commemorate and celebrate the coronation by giving pie.” He applauded Gloucester for coming together to do the tradition. “God save the king!” the crowd said.
The tradition of providing king lampreys dates to at least the end of the 12th century, when lampreys, then plentiful in the local Severn River, were served at weddings and royal parties, said Andrew Armstrong, archaeologist for Gloucester City Council. Even earlier, in 1135, King Henry I died after eating too many lampreys, according to “The History of the English People 1000-1154,” by Henry of Huntingdon, a 12th-century Anglo-Norman historian.
In 1200, King John fined the people of Gloucester 40 marks – a significant amount at the time – for not delivering a lamprey pie. John’s son, King Henry III, was also a big fan, and his household accounts show payment entries for lamprey orders for him and his wife, Eleanor, Queen of England, according to the short book “Royal Lamprey Pie of Gloucester,” published in 1953.
In the past, lampreys were marinated in red wine or salt and then roasted with spices, according to English Heritage, a charity that manages historic buildings in England. In the 18th century, lamprey pie recipes included lemon, Mr Armstrong said.
Queen Elizabeth II received many lamprey pies during her 70-year reign, although it is unclear if she ever tried one of them.
Robin Start, 96, who attended the ceremony in Gloucester on Saturday, was among a group of war veterans who sent a 42-pound lamprey pie to Windsor Castle for Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. Lampreys are “terrible, horrible things,” Mr Start said. said, explaining how they latch on to other fish and suck blood. “Do you want to eat fish like that?”
Charles most likely won’t. A long-time environmentalist, he has spoken out against overfishing and said in a BBC interview in 2021 that he avoids meat and fish two days a week. The official dish for the coronation, according to a recipe released by Buckingham Palace, is a vegetarian quiche made with spinach, tarragon, cheese and fava beans. The king and queen are encouraging people to serve the dish at street and garden parties to be held across England during the long coronation weekend, which begins on Saturday.
While lampreys have fallen out of fashion in Britain, they are still eaten in parts of Europe. The Portuguese town of Montemor-o-Velho holds an annual lamprey festival, where gourmands descend on the town to try lampreys, which are prepared by boiling them in their own blood.
Eating lamprey in Britain is not illegal, but catching one requires permission from the British government. The city of Gloucester used lampreys in pies for Elizabeth in 2012 and 2015, even though the lampreys were imported from Canada, where they were considered a pest and a threat to the local trout population.
When Gloucester officials said it is no longer suitable for lampreys from Canada, given Charles’ focus on sustainability, the tradition can potentially be brought back if conservation efforts in England are successful.
“If we can restore them, they won’t be an endangered species,” Mr Armstrong said, “and we’ll be happier if we put them in the pie.”
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