James Middleton is not the only royal-adjacent failson shilling a book these days. Tom Parker Bowles is also promoting his book, and it’s endlessly funny to me that James and Tom are promoting their books at the same time and that the British media has absolutely no criticisms to make of all of this tackiness. Even funnier is that James Middleton is getting much more attention than the queen’s son. Ouch. Not that I want to defend Tom Parker Bowles, but the man has always written about food. That’s his thing, that’s his career, he’s a food writer, so writing a book about food isn’t going to damage the monarchy. The thing is, his new book is Cooking & The Crown, and it’s all about royal food throughout Britain’s history. Well, Tom wrote a piece in the Mail about royal food: “What the Queen, Charles and Camilla really eat, reveals TOM PARKER BOWLES – and the surprising foods that are always off the menu.” Tacky. An excerpt from his Mail piece:
As I discovered while researching my new book, Cooking And The Crown, royal dining isn’t all roast cygnet, turtle soup and songbirds stuffed with foie gras. Far from it. Although those two monarchs were prodigious eaters, their descendants, from George V to King Charles, were (and are) rather more abstemious in their appetites.
While the book is packed with royal edible history, it’s a cookbook first and foremost, a distillation of all the best of eating in palaces and castles over the years, and one I hope will become stained and battered with constant use. You’ll find everything from fish goujons and chicken salad, through Irish stew, pasta with mushrooms and martinis to shortbread, Queen Mary’s chocolate cake and creme brulee.
Today, though, with the exception of state banquets and official dinners, The King and Queen eat simple, healthy and resolutely seasonal food, whether they’re at Buckingham Palace, Sandringham or Balmoral. Their chefs, under the expert control of Royal Chef Mark Flanagan, travel with them.
The King and Queen really know their food. There is no man who knows more about food and farming, from the best of British cheeses, through rare breeds of sheep and cow, to heritage varieties of plum, apple and pear, than the King.
Charles is a true food hero, and he very much practices what he preaches. The King has long talked about the importance of sustainable agriculture, and there is no waste at his table. Just like the sovereigns before him, his kitchens are filled with the seasonal bounty of the royal estates and gardens, from game, beef and lamb, to peas, strawberries, raspberries and chard. That, along with state banquets, and the importance of tea as a mid-afternoon meal, is a tradition that has endured through the ages.
Food is cooked and prepared in the cavernous kitchens of Windsor Castle, 750 years old, with soaring, arched ceilings, and two fireplaces at each end, large enough to roast an entire ox. Or at Buckingham Palace, where the original kitchens, designed by George IV, were a sweaty, torrid hellhole, with sewage leaking through the floors and the air thick with coal smoke and curses. It was Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, who decided to move the kitchen to the other side of the palace in 1851, making it cooler, cleaner and altogether more civilised. It remains there to this day, complete with old fireplace and the rotisserie, which is operated by a complex system of weights and pulleys.
One of the things I learned about covering QEII’s eating and drinking habits is that while she wanted all seasonal dishes, she did not like any kind of seasoning, so palace food was usually very bland. I don’t think she even really liked salt. But she was usually pickled, consuming martinis and aperitifs throughout the day. I think King Charles is the same way with preferring unseasoned food, and Camilla is the same way about being constantly drunk or buzzed. While there’s much to appreciate in Charles’s passion for farming, I’ve never gotten the impression that he actually enjoys food or appreciates a good meal or a good dish. All of that money and access and private chefs, and he just munches granola and berries throughout the day.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.