Hey, people pay a lot of money to get the inside story.
The royal family certainly has its complexities and quirks; McGrady can testify to this.
After all, the proof is in the pudding.
I think she really, really loves the Highlands," (viaTown & Country).
Former royal chef Darren McGrady expanded on the royal family’s love of Balmoral while in conversation withMarieClaire.com.
“Balmoral is where the royal family really let their hair down,” McGrady explained.
“They relax and have fun.
You see them all the time.
At Balmoral, we’d see her all the time.
They were much more relaxed and had more free time.”
In short, Balmoral offered a retreat.
“Granny’s specialty was the salad dressing,” he wrote.
“She’d whisked a large batch.
For instance, he knew that the late Princess Diana struggled with an eating disorder.
“When she was at Buckingham Palace, her bulimia was definitely a hidden thing.
We didn’t know about it.
If you need help with an eating disorder or know someone who does, help is available.
All the fine china was brought out.
At the end of the meal, a bagpipe player would walk around the table.”
The family enters the dining room based on precedence, with the monarch leading the way.
The monarch also dictates when the meal ends.
“He came into the kitchen and I thought he was the gardener,” McGrady toldMarieClaire.com.
I looked and thought, ‘Oh, it’s the gardener.’
It was only after I looked closely that I saw it was Prince Philip.”
McGrady recalled the ways in which the prince incorporated local foods into the family meals.
“Philip would cook out on the grill,” McGrady explained.
The queen’s been picking strawberries with Princess Margaret; let’s have those for dinner.'"
In “Spare,” Prince Harry also recalled Philip on the grill at Balmoral.
He stood amid a thick cloud of smoke, tears streaming from his eyes.
But she wanted the boys to have that experience.
And she said, ‘No, it’s the toy they want.’
“They were royal princes but had children’s palates.”
He said that they’d come home and watch “Blind Date,” a British reality show.
They’d allegedly holler at the TV and laugh while they ate fast food.
Sounds like some great memories.
“I thought, ‘This is so exciting, I’m going to speak to the Queen!’
I remembered thinking, ‘You’ve got to say Your Majesty first, after that it’s ma’am.’
I could hear the Queen laughing; she thought it was hilarious.”
Magazinethat the corgis' menu rotated between beef, chicken, lamb, and rabbit.
He had to carefully dice the meat after cooking it to ensure that there were no bones.
They each had their own bowls," he said.
“The Queen would feed them herself, I think after she’d had her tea.”
However, cooking for the queen could be unexpectedly low-key.
The Queen is very very frugal and it’s simple and plain foods.
That comes from her early years of growing up during the war."
“It’s from growing up during the war.”
Nothing went to waste when it came to the queen.
This was largely because Diana was scared of Queen Elizabeth II.
“In the early days, Diana was quite simply terrified of her mother-in-law.
She kept the formal obsequies dropping a deep curtsy each time they met but otherwise kept her distance.”
Chef Darren McGrady spoke about this too, in terms of food.
On hisYouTubechannel, McGrady explained that Diana’s favorite dessert was crepe souffle d’apricots.
“I knew the princess would come down to the kitchen for seconds.
She was too scared to ask for seconds in front of the queen.”
“She’s not a foodie at all,” Chef Darren McGrady told theDaily Mail.
‘She eats to live; it’s Prince Philip that lives to eat.
The Queen, not so much."
However, there was one major exception for the queen; she couldn’t resist chocolate.
McGrady told theFood Networkthat this was her major food vice.
“The Queen’s a chocoholic.
Loves anything chocolate on the menu,” he said.
McGrady later spoke about her choices in cakes which were, unsurprisingly, also chocolate centered.
When it came to her favorite kind of chocolate, McGrady explained that dark chocolate was her absolute favorite.
“Anything dark chocolate the darker the better,” he explained.
Hilariously, though, it wasn’t a unanimous opinion in her marriage.
“If we were at Balmoral and she was out, we’d slather his steak in garlic.”
McGrady went on, “But when she was at the table, there was no garlic at all.
It was seen as anti-social.”
She liked simplicity, and McGrady noted that she actually preferred plain food.
“The Queen had afternoon tea every day, wherever she was in the world,” he began.
The flavor of the scones changed daily.
Per her love of chocolate, a chocolate ganache cake was a likely sight during her tea.
So the royal family came up with a trick.
They told everyone else 8:30 because they knew she’d be late."
Hey, a few little lies never hurt anyone.
There’s a specific reason for this that goes back to royal family tradition.
Hopefully, they get snuck out to McDonald’s every once in a while!
