6 surprising food facts about Queen Elizabeth, according to a former royal chef

• Celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee consider put through the to start with week of June.

• Previous royal chef Darren McGrady shared tiny-identified information about the Queen’s eating practices in his cookbook.

• Chefs weren’t allowed to slice tea sandwiches into rectangles or squares since they resembled coffins, according to McGrady.

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations just take area all through the initially 7 days of June.

Queen Elizabeth II, 96, is the 1st British monarch to rejoice a Platinum Jubilee — marking 70 a long time on the throne — and celebrations will just take spot around the first week of June.

Darren McGrady is a former royal chef who spent 15 decades as a chef for the Queen at Buckingham Palace and Princess Diana at Kensington Palace. He joined the Queen’s employees in 1982 ahead of transferring to Diana’s workers in 1993. McGrady remained at Kensington Palace right until Diana died in August 1997.

Ahead of the celebration, McGrady re-produced the 2007 anecdotal cookbook “Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen area,” which shares very little-recognized information about the royals and their ingesting behaviors.

Queen Elizabeth ordered scones with her tea every day — but gave them to her corgis rather.

In accordance to McGrady’s cookbook, scones ended up portion of Queen Elizabeth’s day by day tea services throughout his time at Buckingham Palace.

“They have been served religiously every single working day, alternating in between fruit scones or basic scones,” McGrady wrote. “Whilst the Queen insisted on them as component of her tea, I suspect she didn’t actually like scones. I say that due to the fact she in no way, at any time ate them.”

McGrady ongoing that the Queen would feed them to her corgis.

“As a substitute, at the conclusion of her everyday tea, the Queen would choose a scone and crumble it onto the flooring for the corgis. It would seem the puppies very liked them,” he wrote.

Chefs were not authorized to slash tea sandwiches into rectangles or squares for the reason that they resembled coffins, according to McGrady.

McGrady recalled inquiring a fellow chef why it was required to trim corners off of tea sandwiches for Queen Elizabeth throughout his early days at Buckingham Palace.

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“I was told to in no way minimize a square or a rectangle,” McGrady wrote in his cookbook. “It seemed too considerably like a coffin and it intended you wished the Queen sick. I was aware to hardly ever make that miscalculation.”

The head chef developed menu selections for Queen Elizabeth each day.

McGrady wrote that the head chef “would acquire a checklist of menu strategies” each individual day for Queen Elizabeth to approve.

“Every working day he would generate his tips down in a pink leather-based-certain reserve with ‘Menu Royal’ embossed in gold on the protect,” McGrady wrote. “As shortly as just one reserve was crammed, it was sent to the royal archives and a new guide was despatched to the kitchen area as a substitute.”

McGrady attempted to history Princess Diana’s each day menus when he moved to Kensington Palace, but she experienced no curiosity.

“She assumed it was a squander of income and asked, ‘Why would any one in a long time to arrive want to know what I ate?'” McGrady stated of Diana.

The Queen has a properly-acknowledged enjoy for chocolate but gave up the address each calendar year for Lent.

According to McGrady, “The Queen gives up chocolate for Lent, so banished are her favorite Bendicks Bittermints and Charbonnel et Walker candies.”

“On Easter Sunday the cooks would go to good lengths to get ready all types of chocolate treats to make up for the forty-day abstinence,” McGrady wrote. “There were chocolate cakes in addition milk chocolate, white chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate eggs.

McGrady additional that the chocolate sweets had been served at royal teatime for “a number of times” before getting positioned in the staff members eating place.

Queen Elizabeth was “particular” about consuming fruits in time.

In a chapter about Windsor Castle, McGrady wrote about the Queen’s love for the Royal Ascot during the summer time. The Royal Ascot is a prestigious five-working day horse racing occasion in the British isles established by Queen Anne in 1711.

“Ascot kicked off the summertime for palace cooks,” McGrady wrote. “Now we could use strawberries, cherries, and all the superb summer season fruits.”

He continued: “The Queen was really unique about ingesting fruits in season. We could serve strawberries pretty much every working day throughout the summertime — but woe betide any chef who place them on the menu in January.”

McGrady constantly realized when Queen Elizabeth was ready for lunch at Sandringham Estate’s Wooden Farm mainly because of her horde of corgis.

Wood Farm is located on the Queen’s Sandringham Estate, a non-public residence, in Norfolk.

“The dining room was proper upcoming to the kitchen area, and we understood when the Queen was coming by for lunch since the doorway was constantly open and the canines would be herded into the kitchen area,” McGrady wrote.

“I could come to feel as several as twelve in the royal eating home and six in the staff members room, all the while navigating close to the puppies, which have been jumping for tidbits,” he continued. “You could not press the pet dogs away, for the Queen would hear them yelp in the future area and know what was likely on.”

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