Secrets Of The Royals - Royal Kitchens - British Royal Documentary

[Music] the royal family for centuries representing the nation on the world stage and when they put on the glitz it's the kitchens that keep the cogs turning an army can't fight on an empty stomach and a monk can't rule without having some food it's the engine oil for the engine that is the british royal family we open the door on life in the royal kitchens and get the inside scoop from the royal chefs working for the queen was amazing cooking for kings and queens and presidents they revealed the do's finger sandwiches cut into four minus the cross and goats you try and serve strawberries to the queen in january and it's off to the tower you're really in trouble observing her majesty whose private dining habits are not as extravagant as you may think she eats her dinner off a tray looking at the television she likes it we discover the lengths our royals go to in the name of diplomacy it's very phallic they didn't have to put the whole thing in their mouth which would have been pretty gross [Music] and delve into the shocking history of royal health and safety it's a wonder really that the whole place didn't go down with cholera and typhoid and reveal how harry's kitchen curiosity could have scarred him for life if i'd not been like usain bolt racing across the floor he would have yanked that pan down this boiling water would have gone all over him these are the secrets of the royal kitchens buckingham palace the monarch's official hq and hub of royal engagements at its core is the kitchen a well-oiled machine with the capacity to cater on a mind-boggling scale every year the royal family cater for thousands and thousands of people and just at buckingham palace alone it's 50 000 people every year they have this convening power they bring people together and a lot of the events at which they do that food does play a key role this dinner is always an opportunity for us to come together as friends with so many mouths to feed it's no surprise that the royal shopping bill is eye-watering in 2018 the royal family spent 1.6 million pounds on food that food will be food for garden parties will be food for guests who are visiting the queen is entertaining it'll be for the tea that she gives the prime minister at their weekly audience it's a huge amount of money and you know most people's weekly shop is you know 50 100 pounds down the supermarket it is an extraordinarily little sum for the premier monarchy in the world and for us to have spent so little money on food shows how completely efficient and streamlined buckingham palace and windsor castle have become and nothing is more streamlined and steeped in tradition than a royal state banquet it's the highlight of any state visit of a visiting head of state to the uk it's kind of the centerpiece really it's a very lavish affair and preparations will start months before a glittering state banquet an occasion fit for the head of state of one of our closest allies the queen of course head of state has a hugely important role in a state visit and a state banquet unlike in the united states the british head of state is not limited to terms of four years and the banquet is it's an incredibly sort of personal aspect of the visit to her i certainly know that the queen has personal involvement in the menu she consulted and collaborates with her chefs one of those chefs was darren mcrady who worked in the royal kitchens for 11 years working for the queen was amazing looking for kings and queens and presidents when the queen was holding a state banquet it was his job to create a menu for the vip guests the first thing they take into account is there any allergies do they not eat shellfish does the president not eat broccoli it's to show the best of british locally sourced something that's quite fresh and quite light they've only used seasonal fruits in the summer and his asparagus right time of the year nothing really was important and if possible something off the estate maybe some salmon from balmoral or some venison from sandria that attention to detail is selling brand britain so both the way it's prepared and what it is speaks volumes before courses for the state banquet there's the starter which is always fish the main course which is always meage and dessert is fruit course and then coffee and petty fours darren and his team had their work cut out making over 600 plates of food for 170 guests you started at six in the morning it was usually eleven o'clock at night by the time you finished but efforts did not go unnoticed the reward for all those long hours were two miniatures of gin so you could have a gin and tonic and that was a thank you from the queen and when were you supposed to drink it not while you were cooking before the food is dished up the table must be laid the places are measured meticulously a measuring stick is used 18 inches of space between the center of one plate and the center of another you don't have much space so you can understand why they tried to consolidate each setting you've got the forks on the left the knives on the right the exception to that knife on the right rule is little bread knife in restaurants you're probably used to seeing it actually on the plate but for state banquets they've decided to set it above the bread plate like so there's even a secret system to prevent the queen's food being tampered with after everything is plated up a page chooses at random one of the plates to be served her majesty so that if anyone did want to poison the monarch they would have to poison the whole lot and once the guest food is served there are strict rules about how it's eaten you do not sit down until the queen sits down when she starts eating then you can start eating and traditionally you would have to finish eating by the time the queen would finish eating so in years gone past you know cultures will be desperately trying to eat their food quite quickly queen victoria was a famous gobbler so people would often not be finished by the time she was finished so they had to gobble their food as well in western culture a lot of our dining etiquette is put in place to minimize the awareness that we are eating it's small mouthfuls a straight back hands in the lap when we're not eating and so with the royal family they follow these rules in order to focus on building the rapport with the visiting dignitary that's sitting next to them and for the diners there are unspoken rules about who you talk to and when the queen is talking to the guest on her right which will be the visiting head of state then the other female guest will talk to the person on their right and then when the queen switches then they later switch and talk to the person on their left and certain topics of conversation are firmly off the table politics is a good thing to avoid money is another good thing to avoid and sex is another good thing to avoid but just because you can't talk about sex doesn't mean you can't flirt and to wash all that splendid food down there's an array of drinks to hand but they also come with a set of rules the glass that is closest to you is the glass that is used first a champagne flute for the toasts then the smaller of the wine glasses is for white wine generally with the fish course then a larger wine glass for the red wine for the main course and then a small glass for port and then you have your water glass and that's always detached from the other glasses because that glass stays on the table throughout the meal whereas the other glasses will be cleared as the banquet progresses despite intimate knowledge of the rule book things can still go wrong prince philip uttered blast as his glass dropped to the floor at a state banquet in 2003 luckily heads of state politely carried on as if nothing had happened coming up we reveal the shocking past of buckingham palace's kitchens it's a wonder really that the whole place didn't go down with color and typhoid and uncover how a palace disaster could have scarred harry for life if i'd not been like usain bolt racing across the floor he would have yanked that pan down this boiling water would have gone all over him kitchens are at the heart of the home and buckingham palace is no exception staffed by dozens of chefs preparing food and drink for the royals throughout the day it's 7 30 a.m the kitchen's first task of the day the royal cuppa she only drinks earl grey no milk no sugar the queen doesn't make her own tea she has a special coffee room they make all the teas and coffees but she would actually pour her own tea when she was eating breakfast on her own all food created in the royal kitchens is overseen by the queen queen has a royal menu board that's completed by the chef and the chef does three days menus and that gives us enough time to get all the produce in and prepare it and when the menu book goes up to the queen she puts a line through the dishes that she doesn't want she has a hp pencil and she'd tick one or add something that she would prefer if she's out for dinner she puts a line through the page and if she's got guests coming she'll put two or three so we know that she's entertaining the queen has particular tastes that a chef ignores at his peril she knows what she likes i think too spicy because she meets that many people the last thing she wants but i can smell garlic in my breath for last night's curry the queen doesn't eat garlic and the queen doesn't serve garlic because the queen is concerned that garlic clings to the being and you can smell it on the breath if food is offered out of season heads will roll you try and serve strawberries to the queen in january and it's off to the tower you're really in trouble 9am and it's time for breakfast typical breakfast for the queen would be in her own sitting room she'd have some hot tea and then a bowl of cereals from a plastic tuffleware container it might have been served on a silver tray in you know lovely porcelain but it was still kept in tupperware containers just like in anyone else's kitchen back at home prince charles has a very particular breakfast routine as well whenever the prince of wales came to stay with the queen he always arrived with that hamper of his own produce and in the kitchen we'd have jars of bottled plums from the high grove garden the instructions were to put two plums and a little juice into the bowl and send it in to him for breakfast i'd send in two plums and he would take one so they'd come back out after breakfast and i'd put the other plum back into the jar and save it so one morning i thought okay he only eats one for breakfast so i just put one plum in the jar and sent it out into the dining room and the footman came through and said this royal highness said can you have two please so i had to keep sending two in every morning this wholesome breakfast is a far cry from queen victoria's morning spread it was famously elaborate it included things like lamb chops fowl tongue bacon potatoes she just went for it and it's no surprise that she very possibly had digestive problems later in life the current queen is more likely to enjoy rich pickings at lunchtime especially at balmoral elmoral affords recreation as well as relaxation hunting shooting and fishing there's trout in the streams nearby and salmon at the right time of the year and when they get a good catch the kitchens spring into action cooking a lunchtime dish of grilled fillet of salmon with a watercress sauce one of the queen's favorites and royal chef dez sweeney was the man to do it the salmon would have been caught in the river dee behind by male 1 there's worked as the queen's chef for three years this is a smallish salmon it's about five pound in weight it's a bit of a go-to safe dish one that the family enjoy one that she likes to present to guests the queen's guests would fish for salmon staff were allowed to fish if they caught one they would offer it to the queen who would politely decline so i've got a fill it off these are pin bones they're very very small and if you're doing a large amount of salmon for like stay banquet it's a very tedious job a few years ago when the queen mother was alive unfortunately she got a fish bone stuck in her throat traditionally you uh swallowed bread and bread will take it down but this day it didn't work so they had to get in the hospital quite quickly apparently it wasn't me so here i'm just taking the skin off the back of the salmon and then we're just portion out the queen famously hates waste from the the tail ends we make fish cakes go down to staff or that we go to breakfast dish queen it's very sensibly really meal's at a regular time she doesn't have big meals doesn't have late meals and it's really good for your metabolism to live like that so it's been filleted lightly oiled and i'm just going to grill it very simply we'd make a few portions normally one spare just in case the worst happens we drop one or the tray get a spill or something like that the queen is particular about sources so daze has to ensure it's totally lump free generally the sauce that's been sort of processed for it's very fine crafting to be strained so for plating up i'm going to use some norfolk sample just on the bottom just gives it a little texture so there you have a grilled fillet of balmoral salmon watercress sauce a light lunch flip for a queen so with the queen's lunch sorted it's time to feed the corgis and it's anything but a dog's dinner they had their own menu one day lamb one day chicken one they beef and we'd have to make sure that all the meats we cut into very very fine dice a brunoise so that there were no bones in there because we couldn't have the royal corgis choking it's four o'clock and we can reveal the queen's favorite form of refreshment the absolute sacrosanct part of the queen's day she loves afternoon tea and actually i think it's very instructive that when megan duchess of sussex first met the queen it was an afternoon tea at buckingham palace drinking tea as a social ritual has a long-standing royal connection catherine of braganza wife of king charles ii brought tea to england from her native portugal she drank it daily and fashionable upper-class ladies flocked to copy her habit nowadays tea drinking often accompanied by some delicious titbits remains a traditional afternoon treat for the royals finger sandwiches selected cucumber smoked salmon cream cheese count to four minus the crust and then you turn them on the edge and you cut the edge off so they look like little 50p pieces and that was how they presented scones every day and some sort of small cake the queen does have a sweet tooth anything with chocolate in [Music] she particularly likes a chocolate biscuit cake which is made with bitty's biscuits and quite a sweet nod in time spent with his granny prince william actually for his second wedding cake chose a chocolate biscuit cake to be served alongside the official kind of fruit cake that he had when he got married to kate because he remembered this chocolate biscuit cake from having mt with his granny even when it comes to sweet treats the corgis are not left out she'll often take one of the scones and just crumble it onto the carpet so that a corgis her royal corgis can enjoy afternoon tea with that another royal who's reported to enjoy an afternoon tidbit is prince charles although he is said to have rather precise requests there's a great story about how he likes his eggs at four minutes exactly so the kitchen staff frequently has several pots of eggs boiling so that when he does come in after a day's hunt there's one egg that's been boiled at precisely four minutes that he would like to eat his head of communications has absolutely denied this story often when we hear stories about lavish demands from the royals sometimes staff are anticipating what the royal might want he might not even know that there were you know four different paths of water on the boil with all these eggs being prepared just in case [Music] seven pm it's gen o'clock when you were the head of state of 16 countries you might feel the need for a stiff drink a drink was gin and juvonne on a big function they would always be gin and dubonne on most of her trails just in case she'd put a hand up and say can i get a drink please when she's off duty there is reportedly one element of the queen's private dining that may feel familiar to many of us she eats her dinner off a tray looking at the television she likes it it's homely it's cozy it's comfortable and to polish off dinner most days there'd be a fruit bowl go up cream is a big fan of fresh fruit especially stuff that's grown locally an eating fruit has a particular method now this is how the queen would eat a banana we don't peel it like a primate instead using the fork we hold it in place and cut off one end then we cut off the other end and then we turn the knife on its side and go into the skin like so and then prising it open and then cut a little bit off and eat like so but there are times when the royals need to pop out for a treat that really hits the spot it's the best thing i've eaten for a very long time fast foods were also tempting for the royal princess william and harry they loved pizzas burgers they loved me to cook them burgers i remember coming in to work one morning and nanny had asked for roasted chicken and she wanted lots of green vegetables served with it too well i think william or harry must have looked at the menu and thought hmm we don't want that when i came in in the evening there was a note on my desk and he said darren please give the boys pizza for dinner tonight signed jess i looked at it and thought why is this in the writing of a five-year-old and then i realized he'd written it they actually got the roasted chicken i was scared of the nanny the boy's love of food nearly got one of them into serious trouble i was cooking spaghetti bolognese for them i had a big pan of water on the stove and prince harry came over and i just happened to turn and look and he put his hand up on the pan and said what's in here and if i'd not been like usain bolt racing across the floor he would have yanked that pan down this boiling water would have gone all over him oh that was a scary day the modern royal kitchen is hot on health and safety but that wasn't always the case kate williams has come to the national archives to expose a shocking state of affairs when victoria turned 18 she became queen and moved from kensington palace to buckingham palace but buckingham palace had been neglected for seven years and almost immediately after the queen moved in there started to be complaints about the unholy stink an investigative scientist was put on the case what i've got here is this amazing report that was made by dr liam playfair in 1845 he says that what he's been asked to do is look into the evil complained of and ascertaining the causes which vitiate the air in that building as he says here the smells in the palace are so powerful as to produce nausea and feelings of sickness and i think there had been some perception that perhaps it was the fires or the gas lights that have caused this horrible atmosphere no he said the main evil is the kitchen he says i'm reminding you that one of the largest sewers in the world runs unfortunately through the precincts of the palace actually it ran under the kitchens and i'm afraid to say it was also leaking so the sewage was coming through the kitchen floor if this wasn't bad enough there were a lot of unsanitary practices in the kitchens including piling up the rubbish in the dustbins which were he says filled with garbage of a very bad description and next to them were your rhinos for the use of the male servants without a flow of water you can't flush them and actually he's really quite rude about the palace he says i could not have believed it credible that such an extraordinary instance of scientific ignorance existed in any building in the present day he cannot believe it so you've got a potent combination here of rubbish of unsanitary practices and of disgusting sewage they are all eating food in this incredibly unsanitary conditions it's a wonder really that the whole place didn't go down with cholera and typhoid coming up a right royal mix-up in the kitchen i said the gardener wants to speak to you and he went back upstairs and i walked with him and he said good morning royal highness and i thought it's not the garden and kate and william are faced with a rather phallic diplomatic dilemma try a bit think of england carry on they didn't have to put the whole thing in their mouth which would have been pretty gross if you want to discover what's in the royal kitchen cupboards look no further than the list of warrant holders warrants are essentially a mark of recognition to businesses that have supplied goods or services to either the queen the duke of edinburgh or the prince of wales more than a hundred of them are food and drink businesses [Music] everything from companies who make baked beans fish mangos to champagne producers kellogg's has a royal warrant schweppes has a rural warrants cadburys fortnum mason has been filling the royal shopping trolley since the 18th century they say that fortnum is the royal grocer it was the sweet store that was a focus for the duchesses [Laughter] it's not to be confused with freebies the royal warrant recipients are not necessarily providing free swag to the royal family they're just preferred suppliers and brands need to have supplied a royal household for five years then they can upgrade their packaging when a business is granted a royal warrant that allows them the opportunity to display a royal coat of arms on their packaging obviously that's a huge accolade but like all of us royal tastes can change sometimes royal warrants can be revoked just because the royals have decided that they've gone off something so cars water biscuits which used to supply cheese biscuits to the royal family they reapplied for their warrant and it wasn't granted because the royals had just gone off them down the road from the queen's scottish residence balmoral is a company that has been supplying the monarchy for generations a whiskey distillery first granted a warrant by prince albert in 1848 on a recent visit prince charles got stuck in checking the goods were still worthy of this honour with a nod of approval given it's back to balmoral where the kitchens are gearing up for a visit chef darren mcgrady accompanied the royals on several trips and it's safe to say they don't pack lightly all the equipment would go from buckingham palace knives spoons ladles pots pans dishes everything would go up to balmoral castle it took lots and lots of planning you had to make sure that all the food was ordered to go into burma castle where we were going for you know four six eight weeks and although the kitchen staff and equipment are the same the royals like to muck in prince philip loves to cook three four five nights a week they would actually go off and barbecue in the hills that's when the royal family like to sort of relax and let their hair down once the trappings and routine of royalty are quietly laid aside the few precious unwinding weeks at balmoral are a time too for a gathering of strength for the year ahead the job of being royal is strenuous prince philip was very interested in food and he'd come down and help choose the ingredients for the barbecue and the queen needs to put the salad together food is still chopped up in the kitchen so all they have to do is mix it up for us it was good it's more like a night off still served on nice china it's still served on nice silver but they serve it themselves and then afterwards the queen would actually rinse and scrape the dishes i mean imagine that however some felt it wasn't fitting for the queen to be getting her hands dirty once when was the statue was up at balmoral she noticed that the queen was doing the washing up without gloves so mrs thatcher went and bought her some rubber gloves and sent them to her which was rather sweet that's the sort of present that she would love it wasn't just gifts that arrived unexpectedly i was in the kitchen i was on my own in there and this old man walked in and he was wearing tatty old clothes and he'd got this cardigan on with the arms all worn out and he said where's the chef and i said i'll just get him for you sir and i went down and found the head chair and i said the gardener wants to speak to you and he went back upstairs and i walked with him and he said good morning royal highness and i thought it's not the garden it's prince philip [Music] the kitchens also play a key part in royal travel between 1954 and 1997 the royal yacht britannia took the royals all over the [Music] on world the queen hosted politicians and dignitaries and for the chefs logistics were at the top of the menu the food had to be sent down to portsmouth where it could be loaded onto britannia and put in the freezers and by the time we flew out with all the fresh produce we were there we were planned and we were ready to cook but cooking on a ship has its own challenges you're in a confined space the kitchen's not very big you don't know anything ears there was a lot of people a lot of dignitaries a lot of vips a lot of security love them would come through the galley so you'd be cooking away the next thing there's more people walking through and it's like it's like is he working in the kitchen or is he vip i don't know what it is for a royal chef the show must go on come hell or high water we were sailing into a storm i put chocolate souffle on the menu and that was a big mistake in gotten around to my course i put the souffles into the oven and i went outside and the storms were getting worse i came back inside looked at the souffles and they were rocking around in the bowl i just went outside throw up over the side of britannia oh sometimes it was so bad the queen would helicopter off and fly ahead and it's like okay it's going to be rough and of course prince philip loved it yay let's go let's go because he used to be a sailor on tour digestive disasters for the royals are to be avoided at all costs when a royal goes on tour huge consideration is given to what they eat just a little bit individual tastes taken into consideration they might say well prince william that's curry's or you know the queen for instance famously doesn't eat shellfish not because she doesn't like it but because obviously shellfish can give you an upset stomach and if you're doing an important diplomatic tour you don't want to miss a day because you're sick she takes her bottled walls and water and that's all she drinks sometimes food and drink can prove to be a diplomatic challenge now a coconut shell is handed to the queen for the ceremonial drinking of the cow she often has to eat things that she might not privately wish to eat here the mixing and drinking of the carver is of the greatest importance but she does it because she's very beautiful and she doesn't want to offend her hosts to the western palette the taste is well unusual when our younger royals have been faced with unfamiliar delicacies they don't always maintain their composure as emily andrews witnessed when i was on tour with william and kate in 2016 in canada we were at this lovely kind of presentation of seasonal canadian produce some shining kate was looking gorgeous i was like oh this is lovely and suddenly we see this clown called a geoduck it's very phallic looking kind of long tube and kind of a bulbous part at the end it's delicacy and you eat it and so kate and william were kind of going around the stores we were all just pressed kind of waiting for them to present it this geoduck clam and what would they do and bless them they both tried it they managed to stifle any kind of giggles there's a slight giggle from kate so the etiquette there would just be to pick up the food item have a little nipple make some polite remark and then place it down try a bit think of england carry on i think they had a chopped up bit they didn't have to put the whole thing in their mouth which would have been pretty gross coming up when megan came under fire for promoting her favorite fruit they are involved in the exploitation of workers abroad and how dare she uh promote the consumption of avocados and a greedy king's artery-clogging meat feast it looks like what might happen to us post a nuclear armageddon you're not gonna make me try and eat this are you they are so gross whether it's hosting a state banquet or barbecuing in balmoral the royal requirements are the same produce must be locally sourced and sustainable it's an attitude that now seems surprisingly modern they were long into seasonal food long before high street supermarkets restaurants um because they understood produce where it came from for prince charles this interest in how food was grown became a passion he introduced organic food into all the royal palaces i mean apparently he's set up at santorini and kind of literally with armfuls of organic produce from highgrove his personal house in gloucestershire and prince philip was like what's this so charles is kind of you know funny little habit prince charles is notorious in country house circles for when he comes to stay he often brings his own food not everybody thinks it's a good thing to do but people put up with it you know it's one of his eccentricities prince charles was mercilessly mocked when he professed his love of organic food he believed and saw very early on the damage that pesticides could cause organic farming delivers the highest quality best tasting food produced without artificial chemicals or genetic modification he was very instrumental in pioneering in creating a garden that was pesticide free in 1990 prince charles established duchy [Music] originals [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] a brand through which to sell organic produce grown on his high grove estate charles really was a bit of a groundbreaker because he was championing organic food and sustainability before it was particularly fashionable years later and the brand has gone mainstream i think back to 19 years ago when he launched the first oat biscuit and there were huge headlines saying a shop solid royal so in an even more soiled capacity i'm here today just to say nothing to give me greater pleasure sales of dutch originals at waitrose have now exceeded one billion pounds and also raised 27 million pounds for his charitable foundation so he's clearly very pleased about that a newer member of the royal family has also used food to champion a good cause in kitchens far removed from royal palaces before megan even joined the royal family she was making private visits to the women of the hub community kitchen where women had gathered to cook for the community this is the one project megan has made her own the community kitchen in the shadow of grenfell tower that duchess of sussex has been coming to for many months and she said how she instantly felt very at home and very welcomed by that community and a big part of that was this sort of common love of food it was clear megan has a strong bond with the women who come here she comes and loves with us and then she knows about our family we know about her [Music] and she came up with the idea of making a cookbook so using all the ladies recipes andy her recipes to raise money for this community kitchen with the attention that someone of her celebrity can bring to this cause the book has been flying off the shelves the money that it raised was plowed back into the community kitchen it was completely renovated and i remember at the launch megan said that she felt that she'd always come home meeting these ladies because it was kind of such a melting pot of different nationalities and identities and how food bound them all [Music] before she met harry megan wrote publicly about her love of creating in the kitchen we know the most about her in terms of food in comparison to anyone else because of course she had a blog called the tig where she wrote about her love of food and she shed recipes and she spoke about the meals that had influenced her and what her view on food was she likes to eat clean and green there's reports of her like wanted to eat vegan during the week so very much kind of plant-based food and she certainly doesn't think eats a huge amount of red meat the modern royals seem to be much more interested in food healthy eating and i think that's exciting for oils of the past healthy eating wasn't a priority henry viii lived a life of gluttony and excess and championed grotesque and meaty concoctions in the kitchen the and trees was one of his favorites historian kate williams is going to meet andrew clark a chef who still uses an open fire and has been preparing this calorific creation oh my goodness i've read so much about the cotton trees and i've never actually seen one and there it is half pig and half chicken it looks like the most terrifying mutant thing i can possibly imagine kind of what might happen to us post a nuclear armageddon you're not going to make me try and eat this i definitely are i've really got to live like okay the chotters and then the chicken legs it's so gross the and trees was created by taking half a pig and half a chicken and stitching them together there's no nice way of stitching this really it's all quite frankenstein henry viii's kitchens were the largest in tudor england making over 800 meals per day pretty freaky huh the and trees was roasted on an open fire and served up by the king to his waiting vips if you're henry viii you're just giving him a big signifier of his power here you're really showing off his brilliance because only he can afford the best people who can make this incredible creative time-consuming dish henry basically spends the equivalent of five million pounds on a massive meat feast and this is the centerpiece it's about grandeur it's about excess and really showing off how can we think of the craziest thing to do i know let's stuff a pig with a chicken you know how fun is that would you like to try something i'm kind of terrified and also i'm quite excited because it does smell good let's give it a go let's see here we go oh my gosh thank you so i used to be a vegetarian it's a good thing i'm no longer otherwise i'm quite traumatized okay that is beautiful if i was at hampton court eating this rather marvellous meat i think i'd be pretty impressed well i think we should drink to the and trees cheers the humble chicken has taken center stage for our modern royals too famously megan and harry got engaged as they were trying to cook a rose chicken it's a standard typical night for a cozy night it was what we're doing just roasting chicken and napping trying to roast the chicken i think harris had trying to cook a roast chicken i mean we know that megan is a very accomplished cook very romantic he got on one knee down the roast dinner but that's great that's you know shows that they're normal it's something that we can all imagine doing it's not something that we think oh well that's because they were royal they were doing that and any meal they eat can make the news but it's not always a welcome headline as a friend of megan's discovered on a visit to kensington palace he posted what i'm sure he felt was a very innocuous photo of avocado toast and wrote that megan was the avocado whisperer because she does such great avocado toast one newspaper absolutely went after megan for eating avocados saying that they are involved in the exploitation of workers abroad and how it's a controversial thing to eat and how dare she uh promote the consumption of avocados an unconventional life in the limelight hasn't stopped the brothers from having an ordinary approach to food we're living together as brothers and it's fantastic it really is he does most of the cooking i just lays around watching tv if you think about william when he was at university he did have that regular university experience you know he lived with other students and that he did the things that other students do and that would have extended to the way that he ate as well he certainly wasn't up in saint andrews with a chef who was preparing his meals you know that just wasn't happening and same way with harry when he was in the military he didn't go with his own chef it was very much a case that he fitted in and did what everyone else did so they do have that pretty ordinary relationship with food they bring up to modern day aren't they you're too kind it's the new kids on the block harry william don't want to live like grandma [Music] when william and kate had apartment 1a at kensington palace renovated they famously had two kitchens put in one kitchen for them to use personally and also a professional kitchen for hosting events at kensington palace kate in the papers was dubbed two kitchens kate i've had conversations with her about how much she loves to cook and she certainly likes to cook for the kiddies when faced with a baking challenge kate can definitely rise to the occasion of course when we think about the royals and particularly the queen you know they have loads of staff to do everything for them but actually kate cooks a lot of their meals herself and i think she likes to do that because like most of us that's the heart of her family life whatever the royal family eat and wherever they are the eyes of the world are watching they are very much on display and every engagement that they do they are watched very closely we might have to come down here for lunch everything they eat and drink becomes the story and even though the modern royals have a more hands-on approach to food their chefs will always have a vital role to play kate will not be queen in her tiara going shopping around waitrose that's not gonna happen she won't have time in any case she's gonna be too busy but whoever is on the throne the royal kitchens will always be at the heart of the monarchy food is very important when it comes to the way that we function as a country diplomatically that's going to continue to be a key feature in the future it's the engine oil for the engine that is the british royal family an army can't fight on an empty stomach and a monarch can't rule without having some food so you

Channel: British Documentary

Views: 254,804

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Id: 43KQ4s31nDI

Length: 46min 17sec (2777 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021