Dining with the Royal Family: To Each Their Own Suckling Pig
Ha, there’s the sound of the bagpipes! Then we can sit down at the table. Strange? Not at Balmoral Castle, the Scottish palace of Queen Elizabeth. Her chef Graham Newbould revealed some kitchen secrets. ‘Garlic? No, the Queen can’t stand it.’
The YouTube channel Real Royalty features all kinds of documentaries about the British royal family. Intrigue, history, background stories and also: the documentary ‘What Went on in the Royal Kitchen’ about royal chef Graham Newbould, who spent more than twelve years in total stirring royal pots and pans. Perhaps his successor would do well to take Chef Graham’s lessons to heart: classic French is good, keep the portions small and always cut the green beans into bite-sized pieces. Why? ‘No one in the royal family wants to be spotted with vegetables hanging halfway out of their mouth.’
15,000 canapés gobbled up in two hours
Receptions and official dinners are regularly held at Windsor Castle. It all looks relaxed, but behind the scenes it’s hard work. Graham says that he and a team of twenty chefs spend days preparing the classic appetizers for such a reception. ‘We make around 15,000 canapés; it takes us three days. And within two hours, they’re all gone.’ Anyone would be heading for burnout after that.
The Queen comes to check
The palace dinners are unparalleled, according to royal watchers. A huge team of butlers and sommeliers works for 140 guests. The Queen’s favorite wine? Cheap Matheus rosé from Portugal. In the past, Veuve Cliquot champagne was served at royal banquets, but these days the bubbly also comes from supermarket Tesco. Fifteen minutes before the first guests arrive, Queen Elizabeth takes a quick lap around the dining room to check whether the tables have been properly set.
Fish & chips—how delightfully eccentric!
No visitors? Then the queen mum eats in her own quarters at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. She pulls up a card table and eats in front of the television. Her favorite is fish and chips, but an elegant version. Graham calls it ‘Haddock Saint Germain’: breaded cod and tiny fries, served with tartar sauce, béarnaise or—in true British fashion—with salt and vinegar. She used to eat it with her sisters too, and they thought it was deliciously eccentric!
Fried rat? No thanks
Clearly, Elizabeth is rather conservative in her food preferences. During a state visit to Vatican City, she antagonized all the Italians by making it known beforehand that she didn’t want tomato sauce, garlic or pasta. But she doesn’t always get her way: in Tonga, she was served an entire suckling pig, slaughtered especially for her (she politely declined it), and in Belize she was served a fried rat (she didn’t take a single bite).
Quite fussy
If you think the queen mum is rather particular about her eating habits, you haven’t heard anything about Charles yet. While the royal family enjoys tucking into a full English breakfast, Charles primly nibbles on toast or muesli. Perhaps a fresh juice alongside it, but definitely no bacon, sausages or fried eggs. Thanks to Chef Graham, we know that a special Tupperware container exists for this: the royal breakfast box, containing muesli, nuts and dried fruit in separate compartments, along with six different types of honey. It travels with Charles on every state visit. Quite fussy, Chef Graham calls it.
When the family stays at Balmoral in summer, Charles even stubbornly has organic vegetables delivered every day, grown on his own Highgrove estate. Six hundred miles for organic green beans—how environmentally friendly is that, dear Charles?
A hundred years of eating the same food
A bagpiper always announces dinner at Balmoral. Another amusing tradition Queen Elizabeth stubbornly clings to. In fact, Graham concludes, not much has changed in the culinary traditions of the British royal family over the past hundred years. Dinner time! Anyone fancy suckling pig or a fried rat?
