Royal speculation on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding menu

Menus at royal feasts these days don't seem much different from the menus at the kinds of farm-to-table restaurants that are ubiquitous in most cities. At William and Kate's wedding in 2011, it was organic fare prefaced with the name of the source farm or region.

North Highland lamb. Berkshire honey. Highgrove vegetables. It's the language of the locavore.

For Harry and Meghan, chefs have confirmed the menu will feature a lot of classics made with seasonal English products. And while full details of the royal wedding menu likely won't be released until after Saturday's nuptials, Kensington Palace tweeted pictures of some of the preparations, featuring lots of fresh spring produce.    

Wedding menu may tread new ground for the royal family

According to Kaori O'Connor, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at University College London and author of the book The English Breakfast, because Markle is American—and tends towards a vegan diet—the wedding menu may tread new ground for the royal family.

"She's a California girl. So you can expect a lot of California foods," said O'Connor. "We think cutting edge sort of vegan things, like vegetarian sushi, grilled tofu and kale in every form."

French cuisine dominated royal events of the past

O'Connor has studied the symbols hidden in royal feasts for generations, and says the British nationalism of royal feasts is new. Historically, major royal events were marked not by English food, but by French cuisine. That's partly because French was the language of the court in England for centuries.

"And it continued until very recently," said O'Connor. "In fact, the first time the menus were in English was for the wedding of Prince William. Even Charles and Diana's wedding breakfast was in French."

Efforts to switch away from lavish, multi-course French meals began with Queen Elizabeth. Her wedding breakfast (typically served around lunch time) was mostly locally sourced because of war-time rationing. It also acted as a symbol, a metaphor for an agriculturally rich and productive Britain. By the time her coronation rolled around, the palace had devised a dish that would become something of a staple in English cuisine.

Symbolic royal dish becomes a cultural touchstone

Coronation chicken is a classic dish, dressed with mayonnaise, curry, toasted almonds, sliced grapes and chopped celery.

"What it was meant to do was to symbolize the empire, basically," said O'Connor. "The wide culinary food heritage that has become Britain through its past. It was to celebrate the British empire past and present."

The dish has now become so commonplace in the U.K. that you can buy coronation chicken sandwiches in airport lounges and even coronation chicken flavoured potato chips.