the royal wedding between kate middleton and prince william windsor, and the pizza I made

  That such a momentous occasion has passed in our lifetime is something that we as individuals and lovers of this sceptred isle should be proud of, yet nevertheless when the majority of people are asked the question “where were you when Luke made his pizza”, it is doubtless that thousands will reply that they were attending or watching the royal wedding. This is a point which sadly infuriates me because, as will be obvious to even the most minutely minded of persons, the royal wedding was actually staged to commemorate the making of my pizza. The fact that the making of the pizza went entirely unnoticed by the popular press whilst the wedding has been publicised to manic extremes has become something of a true vexation for me these past four days. Having finally emerged from my depression-induced, alcoholic stupor, I feel it is time that this point were brought to order. 

  The sauce for the topping of the pizza (comprised of garlic, onion, mushroom, red pepper and tomato passata) was in fact the source of the choice of military jacket that Prince William wore on the day of the wedding. The original pinstripe suit with trilby hat and spats shoes was deemed incompatible to the pizza’s colour scheme, and thus at the last minute he was forced to change to his regimental red jacket. The twenty-three buttons on the jacket (the front, the sleeves and of course the shoulders) are symbolic of the twenty-three minutes that the sauce simmered for before I deemed it suitable to be spread on the pizza.

  Whilst it has been publicised that Catherine Middleton’s wedding dress was designed with roses, thistles, daffodils and shamrocks to represent the four territories of the United Kingdom, the truth is that the dress was actually meant to represent the first layer of cheese on the pizza topping. The four plants actually correspond to the four key components of the mixed herbs (marjoram, basil, thyme and oregano) that were added to the cheese to improve the flavour. Also the white colour of the dress was intended to reflect the whiteness of the mild cheddar I chose to use for the first layer of the topping.

  The second layer of the topping was represented at the wedding by the (now) seven core members of the royal family, mimicking the seven pieces of salami I used to create a floral motif on the topping. Just as the seventh (or core) piece of salami sat at the centre of the pizza, so the Queen sits as the central figure of the royal family, whilst the other six (being Phillip, Charles, William, Harry, Camilla and now Catherine) are placed around her. The number of secondary members of the royal family present at the wedding (The other Dukes, Earls, Viscounts and so forth) were limited to correspond exactly to the number of pieces of sweetcorn which also constituted the second layer of the pizza topping. Covering the second layer is the yellow Scottish mature cheddar upon which the colour Queen’s dress and hat were based.

  The Stone of Scone (the symbol of British sovereignty used at all British coronations since 1603) is of course referential to the scone base of the pizza itself. Being a royal wedding, all is conducted under and above the majestic eye of Her Majesty the Queen, so naturally any royal is union sanctified by the sovereignty of the Stone of Scone. The truth of the matter is that Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding was designed to mimic the layering system of the pizza: The Queen’s authority (Scottish mature cheddar) presides over the immediate family (salami) and the extended family (sweetcorn) at the union of Catherine Middleton (mild cheddar and mixed herbs) and Prince William (homemade tomato topping) on the sacred foundations of the British Monarchy (the scone base).

  Having cleared up the theory behind the layout of the wedding it seems only fair that I now compare the wedding to the pizza on an even playing field: Whilst the pizza took approximately one and a half hours to make from scratch, the royal wedding had to be planned months in advance. Even on the day itself people from many hundreds of miles away were camped outside Westminster Abbey, waiting nearly twenty-four hours for the ceremony to begin; whereas the pizza cost approximately £5.36 of my own money to buy all the ingredients (with plenty left over to make more), the royal wedding cost millions of pounds in taxpayers’ contributions – many more times the cost of the pizza itself; though the pizza was both delicious and extremely filling (I could have split it in to two meals, but it was so nice I couldn’t resist it) I found the royal wedding to be virtually inedible, with the percentage of uneatable matter present far outweighing the proportion of eatable matter (though I imagine there are many who would happily have a go at the new Duchess of Cambridge). Ultimately as a meal, the royal wedding remains vastly inferior to the pizza, fulfilling none of the requirements one would expect from food.

  As a result of its taste, texture and fulfilment of all food requirements, the pizza scores an impressive universal percentage rating of 92%.


 Sadly having fulfilled none of the requirements necessary to satisfy my hunger, having taken all of the press attention from the true event of celebration and having never acknowledged it even once during the entirety of the ceremony, the wedding receives considerably less in the rankings. However, it regains marks for being a fitting representation to the majesty of my cooking skills and by being considerably lower in fat: 33%.