Thankfully, there are many more practical recipes that one can cook from this book, from the highly appropriate coronation chicken sandwiches to roast rack of lamb, beef Wellington and smoked haddock soufflé.
The book takes the reader through a monarch’s day — from breakfast to dinner, with refuelling stops for lunch and tea — and an extra section on desserts. Though, of course, you could just dip into it and pick out something to cook.
Cooking and the Crown even has the recipe for the boozy cocktail routinely enjoyed by the queen mother and her daughter, Elizabeth II. We are told that the queen mother’s gin and dubonnet “has a stirring mixture of sweet, bitter and vaguely herbal flavours. And [it] certainly puts a spring in one’s step.”
Breakfast
In the 1800s and early 1900s, a royal breakfast was likely to be a lavish affair, with hams, tongues, cold grouse, partridge, and other birds, whiting, omelettes and devilled kidneys, scones and marmalade, melon, nectarines and raspberries.
“The aristocratic breakfasts of Victorian and Edwardian times were not so much dainty repasts as full-on gastronomic assaults, gut-busting epics that set one up for a good old-fashioned day’s hunting, shooting and roistering. Or simply getting on with ruling one’s realm,” Parker Bowles says.
However, breakfast is a far more frugal affair in modern times.
“The king’s breakfast is simply dried fruit and honey. Queen Camilla has yoghurt in summer and porridge in winter. A thoroughly modern, and healthy, start to the day. But I’m not sure Victoria would have approved.”
Lunch
Queen Victoria’s lunches were a far cry from the humble sandwich that many of today’s loyal subjects nibble on at their desks.
She would start with a soup, either thick pottage or a clear, consommé-style broth, followed by fish, meat and more elaborate savoury dishes — before moving on to a roast with vegetables and then at least three puddings. In case of further hunger pangs, there would be a sideboard packed with whole cold joints of meat.
Tea
No matter how much lunch Queen Victoria ate, she was always ready for another display of gluttony by tea time, when “her favourites included chocolate sponges, plain sponges, wafers of two or three different shapes, langues de chat, biscuits and drop cakes of all kinds, tablets, petits fours, princess and rice cakes, pralines, almond sweets and a large quantity of mixed sweets.”
Dinner
Queen Victoria’s dinners were even more lavish. She would be presented with “up to fourteen courses to battle through ... but she ate very fast — creating a problem for her guests.
“Royal etiquette demanded that as soon as the monarch had laid down her gilded knife and fork, the rest of the table had to follow. And even if you were only part way through your pojarski de volaille, the plate would be whisked away, to be replaced by the next course.
“Most [of those] supping at the royal table accepted this without so much as a mutter. But Lord Hartington, politician and future Duke of Devonshire, was made of sterner stuff. ‘Here, bring that back,’ he bellowed to a ‘scarlet-clad marauder’. Silence fell over the room, and all eyes turned towards the sovereign. For once, thankfully, Her Majesty was amused.”
Parker Bowles has done both foodies and royal watchers a favour, by pulling back the curtain and allowing us a glimpse into the royal kitchens and dining rooms. His book provides a fascinating insight into the ways that eating habits have changed over time, from the obscenity of Queen Victoria’s voracious overindulgence to today’s king and his disdain for lunch.
As the author says, this is “not just a snapshot of the cooking of kings and queens, but a peek behind the scenes, an insight into royal kitchens, banquets, picnics and barbecues. A taste of royal life. Most of all, though, this is a book about pleasure.”
Bon appétit!
A taste of royal life
‘Cooking and the Crown’ provides a glimpse into the kitchens and dining rooms of kings and queens
Image: 123rf.com
Often in life, it’s not what you know, but who you know. Food writer Tom Parker Bowles had a distinct advantage in researching this fascinating, witty and alluring book on royal cuisine. His mum is Queen Camilla.
He has chosen to cover the dining habits of monarchs from the time of Queen Victoria, whose gluttony was legendary, to the time of the current king, Charles III. Unlike his increasingly rotund ancestor, until his recent cancer treatment, the king would eat nothing at all at lunchtime. More recently, it has been reported that he eats half an avocado for his midday meal.
Parker Bowles suggests that if “food is a prism through which one can see history and economics, then the cooking of the royal family offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives and habits of British society’s upper strata. From the grand, if admittedly dyspeptic, excess of the Victorian and Edwardian ages, when cream, butter, foie gras and truffles were used with giddy abandon, to wartime parsimony (no booze, and a mere two courses at breakfast) and on into the modern world.”
The all-star line-up
The best thing about this book is that it effortlessly weaves together history and recipes — recipes that are not daunting or intricate and don’t require a fully equipped royal kitchen, 50 staff and a truckload of freshly slaughtered game birds.
For instance, there is a humble mac & cheese recipe, one for egg mayonnaise sandwiches, the secret to Queen Camilla’s scrambled eggs — and two undemanding ones that I tried: Queen Elizabeth II’s curry and salmon fishcakes.
The chicken curry tasted fine but was a bit bland. According to Parker Bowles, the late queen did not enjoy spicy food and would not eat garlic, presumably because of its impact on the royal breath. So her chosen curry was a tad muted.
The British royals of earlier eras ate far more exotic and elaborate dishes than those favoured by the modern monarchs, and some of the more extreme Victorian- and Edwardian-era concoctions are described in fascinating detail.
Recipes for these are not included — which is fine by me, as I have no desire to rustle up a turtle soup, tuck into a roast swan or munch on the following dainty nibble: “Deboned quails were simmered in their own stock, the heads removed and reserved, the bodies stuffed with foie gras, then painted with two different glazes, both made from the stock. The heads were reattached using a toothpick, and artificial eyes fashioned from egg white and truffle. Served on a pineapple granita, a good day’s worth of work disappeared in a couple of bites.”
Or “a boar’s head in jelly, stuffed with forcemeat, thin strips of tongue and cheek, bacon, truffles and pistachios. Then carefully sewn up and braised”.
Thankfully, there are many more practical recipes that one can cook from this book, from the highly appropriate coronation chicken sandwiches to roast rack of lamb, beef Wellington and smoked haddock soufflé.
The book takes the reader through a monarch’s day — from breakfast to dinner, with refuelling stops for lunch and tea — and an extra section on desserts. Though, of course, you could just dip into it and pick out something to cook.
Cooking and the Crown even has the recipe for the boozy cocktail routinely enjoyed by the queen mother and her daughter, Elizabeth II. We are told that the queen mother’s gin and dubonnet “has a stirring mixture of sweet, bitter and vaguely herbal flavours. And [it] certainly puts a spring in one’s step.”
Breakfast
In the 1800s and early 1900s, a royal breakfast was likely to be a lavish affair, with hams, tongues, cold grouse, partridge, and other birds, whiting, omelettes and devilled kidneys, scones and marmalade, melon, nectarines and raspberries.
“The aristocratic breakfasts of Victorian and Edwardian times were not so much dainty repasts as full-on gastronomic assaults, gut-busting epics that set one up for a good old-fashioned day’s hunting, shooting and roistering. Or simply getting on with ruling one’s realm,” Parker Bowles says.
However, breakfast is a far more frugal affair in modern times.
“The king’s breakfast is simply dried fruit and honey. Queen Camilla has yoghurt in summer and porridge in winter. A thoroughly modern, and healthy, start to the day. But I’m not sure Victoria would have approved.”
Lunch
Queen Victoria’s lunches were a far cry from the humble sandwich that many of today’s loyal subjects nibble on at their desks.
She would start with a soup, either thick pottage or a clear, consommé-style broth, followed by fish, meat and more elaborate savoury dishes — before moving on to a roast with vegetables and then at least three puddings. In case of further hunger pangs, there would be a sideboard packed with whole cold joints of meat.
Tea
No matter how much lunch Queen Victoria ate, she was always ready for another display of gluttony by tea time, when “her favourites included chocolate sponges, plain sponges, wafers of two or three different shapes, langues de chat, biscuits and drop cakes of all kinds, tablets, petits fours, princess and rice cakes, pralines, almond sweets and a large quantity of mixed sweets.”
Dinner
Queen Victoria’s dinners were even more lavish. She would be presented with “up to fourteen courses to battle through ... but she ate very fast — creating a problem for her guests.
“Royal etiquette demanded that as soon as the monarch had laid down her gilded knife and fork, the rest of the table had to follow. And even if you were only part way through your pojarski de volaille, the plate would be whisked away, to be replaced by the next course.
“Most [of those] supping at the royal table accepted this without so much as a mutter. But Lord Hartington, politician and future Duke of Devonshire, was made of sterner stuff. ‘Here, bring that back,’ he bellowed to a ‘scarlet-clad marauder’. Silence fell over the room, and all eyes turned towards the sovereign. For once, thankfully, Her Majesty was amused.”
Parker Bowles has done both foodies and royal watchers a favour, by pulling back the curtain and allowing us a glimpse into the royal kitchens and dining rooms. His book provides a fascinating insight into the ways that eating habits have changed over time, from the obscenity of Queen Victoria’s voracious overindulgence to today’s king and his disdain for lunch.
As the author says, this is “not just a snapshot of the cooking of kings and queens, but a peek behind the scenes, an insight into royal kitchens, banquets, picnics and barbecues. A taste of royal life. Most of all, though, this is a book about pleasure.”
Bon appétit!
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