In the end she was a pitiful lady; living in exile as a “mental wreck” reported the New York Times. But in happier days, before a particularly nasty regicide took her son and grandson almost simultaneously, Queen Maria Pia of Portugal was renowned for her vivacious personality, masquerade balls, exquisite dinners and elaborate costumes.

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In the early 1900s, always the Belle of the Ball, her merry-go-round of lavish entertaining had left a “leading Lisbon draper”, $US20,000 out of pocket for some truly splendid ballgowns. As a member of the royal family, contended her lawyers, Maria Pia could not be “sued personally” when the unpaid bills found their way to court, and into newspapers.

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At this dinner in 1899, Maria Pia was now the Dowager Queen. Her husband, King Luís I, had died ten years earlier, but Maria Pia continued to play a leading role at the Royal Court of her son, King Carlos I. 

Pia’s father had been King of Sardinia before becoming the first King of a unified Italy. Her royal Italian roots help explain two dishes on the menu named after the then heir to Italian throne (Croustade de Macaroni à la Prince de Naples) and the Queen of Italy (Pouding glacé à la Marguerite). It is likely this dinner was in honour of her visiting relatives.

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But the dish that would have attracted most attention was the roast peacocks (Paon rôti), that similarly made an appearance six months later on the New Year’s Day menu of Maria Pia’s brother, King Umberto I of Italy.

Twenty-five years earlier Alexandre Dumas penned Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, where he confided to readers “I only ate peacock once in my life”.

“Except in a few countries, the habit is lost of serving peacocks as an ordinary roast”, wrote Dumas before recounting how it was magnificently served to him at a Mayoral banquet outside San Tropez. In the middle of the table was “a roast peacock with all its feathers preserved, displayed with its fanned tail and [head] raised upon her sapphire neck”.

Another cookery book of the era helps explain that peacock meat “is very white and of exceedingly fine and close grain, and has the true game flavour, with none of the stringiness of the common turkey”.

During the reign of her husband, Queen Maria Pia had extensively redecorated the Palace of Ajuda (Palácio da Ajud) and made it the royal family’s principal residence. When her son became King in 1889, Maria Pia remained at Ajuda where she hosted this dinner. 

Her life, however, would end in exile and great family grief. Pia's brother, the King of Italy, would be assassinated in 1900 before her own son King Carlos I along with her grandson and heir to the throne, Prince Luís Filipe, were assassinated together in 1908, in what became known as the Lisbon Regicide.

And then two years later, as revolutionary forces encircled and bombarded the royal palaces, and in full view of hundreds of curious onlookers, the Dowager Queen Maria Pia found herself scrambling into a fishing boat to hastily reach the royal yacht, Amélia IV, which would whisk what remained of the Braganza royal family into exile.