Fast food hacks, a garlic ban, and a hilarious reaction to organic produce from
Prince Philip. It's clear that the royal chefs have their work cut out for them.
It should come as no surprise that the royal family prefers to eat fancy cuisine. They
are literal princes and princesses after all. Prior to Queen Elizabeth II's death in 2022,
the chefs were tasked with serving primarily French cuisine, staying away from foods that
didn't fall under that umbrella. As former royal chef Darren McGrady told Insider,
"Eleven years at the palace and we never served pizza at all, not even at receptions. The menus
at Buckingham Palace are very traditional French, which wouldn't lean towards having pizza on it."
Though we don't know what's on the royal family's exact menu,
McGrady did reveal one dish the queen was particularly fond of, telling Hello!,
"We cooked a lot of traditional French food like halibut on a bed of spinach."
People around the world love fast food, and it's no different in the United Kingdom. According to
YouGov, 40% of Brits eat convenience food once a week. But Queen Elizabeth
II reportedly wasn't asking her security detail to run her to a drive-thru. Instead,
if the queen wanted to eat fast food, her private chefs would cook their own
versions for her. As former royal chef Darren McGrady told Insider,
"It always tickled me at Balmoral, we would make our own burgers. They would shoot deer, and we
would do venison burgers. There'd be gorgeous cranberry and everything stuffed into them."
The chefs had to follow another rule that affected their fast food creations,
and that was to never make finger food. If the chefs served burgers,
they did so without one beloved ingredient, as McGrady told Insider,
"They would have burgers, but not the buns. So they would eat it with their knife and fork."
While the chefs weren't digging into their stash of yeast to whip up fresh buns,
they were serving the queen another indulgent food quite often. As McGrady told Hello!,
"Anything we put on the menu that had chocolate on, she would choose,
especially chocolate perfection pie."
"The queen was a chocoholic. She loved chocolate."
Most private chefs have to seek menu approval from their clients,
and the queen's chef had to do the same. Royal chef Darren McGrady revealed to Marie Claire,
"At Buckingham Palace, we'd do a menu book that we'd send up to the Queen and she could choose
the dishes she wanted. The book would come back to the kitchen and we'd prepare them.
The Queen's menus are done three or more days ahead and she sticks with them religiously."
The menus might have consisted of meat-heavy dishes, as McGrady told Hello!,
"For a main course she loved game, things like Gaelic steak,
filet steak with a mushroom whisky sauce, especially if we did it with venison."
Now that the queen has passed, the chefs have to seek menu approval from someone else. According to
Liverpool Echo, seeking approval from one member of the royal family might not be that difficult.
The publication revealed that Princess Catherine eats the same breakfast every
day. The princess reportedly enjoys a breakfast of oats, and some of her other favorite foods
include watermelon salad and goji berries. Unsurprisingly, the princess has good taste.
Cooking for the royal family means cooking the food they like, and not experimenting to
find the next greatest dish. In an exclusive interview with Mashed, Darren McGrady shared,
"When you are cooking for the royal family,
it's not like it's your restaurant [...] So you have to prepare the food the way she likes it."
And the queen apparently liked her food without garlic. The new Queen Consort,
Camilla Parker Bowles, even confirmed that the royal chefs couldn't use garlic in their
cooking. During an appearance on "MasterChef Australia," Camilla explained that garlic
can't be served because of the odor it leaves behind after it's been consumed.
"I hate to say this, but garlic." "So garlic is a no-no."
"Garlic is a no-no."
“Because you're talking, chatting, expected to be?”
“Yes, yes, exactly.”
Understandably, no royal wants garlic-induced halitosis when talking to another head of state.
And according to Darren McGrady, the queen might have had another
reason for not allowing chefs to put garlic in her food, as he told Hello!,
"The Queen never was a foodie. She always ate to live rather than live to eat [...] if we
had a new recipe, she'd have to look at the whole recipe before saying,
'Yes ok let's try it'. But for the most part she stuck to the same dishes week in week out."
Royal chefs are just like any other royal staff members, and that means they have to
follow the same rules as all employees. In particular, the staff apparently have to be
very particular about the perfumes they wear. As royal biographer Ingrid Seward told The Sun,
"Prince Philip once had a footman who used to wear a particular aftershave, and it used to make
him feel quite ill [...] I think he had to stop wearing it — they can't wear overpowering scents."
Basically, should you find yourself working at Buckingham Palace one day,
be sure to replace your soaps with unscented versions. Former royal chef Darren McGrady also
revealed that a royal chef's demeanor is just as important as their scent, telling Mashed,
"50% of actually becoming a chef there is your personality [...] because we had a very full
nursery [...] All the children could come into the kitchen at any time. And if we had 20 Gordon
Ramsays running around the kitchen, swearing and shouting, that would not have worked."
Queen Elizabeth dearly loved her corgis. According to the BBC, the royal had corgis almost her entire
life, and these pups sure got the royal treatment. Not only did these dogs live in an actual palace,
but they also had their own room at Buckingham. Former royal footman Steven Kaye told PureWow,
"It's quite regal — a great big dark wooden glossy door with a gold handle
and beautifully polished floor with all these dog beds all over the place."
The dogs also ate just as well as their owner, as Darren McGrady told Insider,
"I thought that when I started at the palace I'd be cooking for the Queen,
and different presidents from around the world. But there I was,
chopping rabbit for the royal corgis. In fact, the royal corgis had their own menu."
The corgis must have been in good health thanks to the chefs preparing rabbit for them. In fact,
rabbit meat is reportedly a great food for dogs to consume, as it's high in
protein and low in cholesterol, and contains a lot of vitamin B12.
Just because you live and work in royal quarters doesn't mean you get to rub shoulders with the
royals themselves. The royal chefs have to maintain their distance from those they're
serving, and the Windsors keep their staff in separate parts of the palace. Comparing
the living arrangements to those depicted in "Downton Abbey," Darren McGrady told Insider,
"If you were a chef or a footman and you were trying to sneak up to the
housemaids' floor and you got caught, you were in serious trouble. Everyone was segregated,
it was the done thing. [...] We were part of the Victorian era. You couldn't even
begin to imagine single males and single females being on the same floor together."
The chefs also have to refrain from speaking to their employers unless they're spoken to.
Former royal footman Peter Russell revealed in the documentary "Royal Servants: Behind Closed Doors,"
"They want you there, but they don't want you there. They want you there because you
have to be there."
According to Seasonal Food Guide, seasonal food has greater nutritional value than
stuff that is out of season, and it tastes better, too. Unfortunately,
there are myriad accessibility issues when it comes to consuming seasonal fruit,
making it nearly impossible for most people to only eat according to that standard.
But the royals live unlike everyone else in the world, and because they have access to
the best of the best, they're able to adapt their diets to what's healthiest. In fact,
Darren McGrady revealed that the Queen would only eat seasonal produce,
adding that she wouldn't dare eat a strawberry in January, per the Daily Mail.
The royals aren't stingy with their seasonal produce, though. If you're fortunate enough
to be invited to one of their events, you'll get in on the healthy foods they're eating,
too. For instance, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had the chefs follow specific guidelines for
their 2018 wedding reception menu. Royal chef Mark Flanagan revealed, per E! News,
"We know the couple wanted us to make sure we used all of the local seasonal
produce as much as possible throughout their menu,
and this recent good weather is really helping us to achieve that."
The royals take many aspects of their lives very seriously,
and that includes their health. Since diet is one of the foundations of health,
the Windsors do their best to consume foods that are nutritious, although the exact definition of
nutritious has changed a bit over the years. The Windsors' devotion to healthy food dates
back as far as Queen Elizabeth's husband, with royal chef Darren McGrady telling CNN,
"The thing with Prince Philip is, he's sort of into healthy eating, too."
The Queen's husband also wanted his food to taste good in addition
to being nutritious. McGrady noted to Hello!,
"Prince Philip was the foodie. He'd want to
try any new dishes all the time and got excited about new ingredients."
Other members of the royal family also wanted to eat healthy food,
with Prince Charles ushering in a new era of organic food. McGrady told CNN,
"[He] was organic before organic was even invented."
"Actually, you have to fit together with nature."
The chef also noted that the organic shift reportedly didn't go over well
with Prince Philip, telling Marie Claire,
"I said, 'It's all organic.' And he said,
'Oh, bloody organic!' And just shook his head and walked out."
With a new head of the monarchy comes some new rules. Queen Elizabeth II died
in September 2022, and her son, King Charles III, took over her position,
bringing about some new dietary guidelines. At King Charles' behest, chefs now have to leave
foie gras off the royal menus. This isn't a completely new rule, though. Back in 2008,
the then-Prince Charles commanded his chefs to stop using foie gras, per The Telegraph.
This rule only extended to his own residences at the time, but now applies to all royal grounds.
"There's only room for one sovereign at a time, not two."
While King Charles chose to ban foie gras due to ethical reasons, his impetus behind
eating organic was more health-charged. According to The Guardian, the king said,
"One of the reasons I went organic 40 years ago was because I felt there was an overuse
of antibiotics. And I felt that if you overdo it, you end up with resistance."
The king also noted that his decision came with some pushback, too, saying,
"I was told I was a complete idiot for even suggesting going organic."
Some of us would be lost without starchy foods. Bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice enhance the lives
of those who consume them. However, according to multiple reports, royal chefs weren't allowed to
cook with starchy foods, making us deeply sad for anyone who lives on Windsor grounds. Per Insider,
Darren McGrady noted that the queen wasn't a fan of starchy foods, and therefore chefs
couldn't include food of that ilk in their menus. This was much to the dismay of Meghan Markle,
who loves pasta. The only starch allowed while the queen was alive was Kellogg's breakfast cereal,
but the chefs weren't responsible for serving that. McGrady told Marie Claire,
"Breakfast was very simple for Her Majesty. Some Kellogg's cereal from a plastic container,
which she'd serve herself. And some Darjeeling tea."
While chefs couldn't serve the queen starchy foods, they did
serve Her Majesty's food on some unbelievable dinnerware. McGrady revealed to Marie Claire,
"It was a marble dish with three gold horses. The dish was encrusted in diamonds, rubies,
sapphires, and emeralds. Thirty-something years ago it was valued at 500,000 pounds."