Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee pudding sounds delicious (unlike most 'royal' cuisine) – Stephen Jardine

This weekend people will be celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with great British food and drink at street parties in the sunshine, up and down the land.

Well that’s the idea anyway. In reality, it will probably rain a bit, lots of people will be away for the holiday weekend and those left at home will try to whip up a lemon and amaretti trifle for the occasion using orange and drambuie because that was all they had in the cupboard.

That said, the official jubilee pudding does sound delicious and the fact that animal rights activists have branded it “cruel and unhealthy” only makes most people want to eat it even more.

It’s about time the royal family contributed something significant to the food and drink life of our country because the evidence to date is to say the least poor.

We know the Queen likes to help herself to breakfast cereal from Tupperware in the mornings. She then chooses what else she eats from a special meu drawn up by the royal chefs but prefers things plain and simple.

It all sounds like such a wasted opportunity. She could summon a different top chef to Buckingham Palace to cook for her every week using the finest produce grown in the UK and across the Commonwealth.

She could demand that Gordon Ramsay makes the Queen of Puddings for her every day and throw him in the Tower of London every time he complains. She could make Mary Berry her lady-in-waiting with a handbag stuffed with homemade Empire biscuits.

Jemma Melvin with her lemon Swiss roll and amaretti trifle which beat 5,000 desserts to become the official pudding of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations (Picture: James Manning/PA)

Instead there is none of that, just the overriding impression that when it comes to food and drink, the Queen really couldn’t care less. How else could you explain coronation chicken, a dish so dire we managed to live without it right up until 1953?

The rest of the royals aren’t much better. Prince Charles gave us his Duchy Organics range, a brand seemingly designed for people who wear red trousers and shop in Waitrose.

Princess Anne’s favourite dish is said to be devilled pheasant which is basically game meat mixed with whipped cream and mango chutney in a way that makes even coronation chicken now sound appetising.

Only Sarah, Duchess of York, seems to have brought the kind of enthusiasm you might expect to the royal table until she became an ambassador for Weight Watchers and that too came to an end.

William and Harry looked like our best bet for bringing some modern passion to royal cuisine but former Palace chef Darren McGrady recently revealed he was often stopped from cooking for the young princes because Princess Diana wanted to take them to McDonalds for burgers.

With Prince Harry now ensconced in California and taking a ‘holistic’ approach to life, it can’t be long until he goes vegan or adopts a diet based around avocado and prune juice.

However, there is a joker in the pack. Camilla’s son Tom Parker Bowles is a newspaper restaurant critic and the author of half a dozen recipes books. He really knows his stuff.

Perhaps in time he’ll be able to use his influence to improve attitudes to what ends up on the royal table and maybe send Prince Andrew that extra large slice of humble pie he so richly deserves.