No matter where she is in the world, Queen Elizabeth II never misses a delicious afternoon tea, according to former royal chef Darren McGrady. Tea time is not a tradition she usually shares with her grandsons Princes William and Harry, however, McGrady spent most of her eleven years serving the Queen at Ludgrove boarding school in England. Instead, boys usually have to drink their own tea in the nursery.
"Only at Easter, Christmas or during the summer at Balmoral Castle can they have afternoon tea with other members of the royal family," he explained to the British Coffee Friends blog ahead of the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations.
"A lot of times we'll actually send toddler teas separately so the kids aren't having tea with the royals," Maddie added. "We would make caramel banana cake with so much sugar that it used to drive the nanny crazy, and jam tarts - traditional, authentic British nursery food." He even shared William and Harry's childhood favorite caramel banana recipe for the cake, noting that William and Harry also "love chocolate biscuit cake," which the Queen will request if her eldest grandson joins her for afternoon tea.
After cooking for the Queen for 11 years, McGrady began working at Kensington Palace as personal chef to Princess Diana, William and Harry from 1993 to 1997. There, Diana "never had a tea ritual" as she actually "drank the coffee" most of the time. ” Meanwhile, her younger sons were “never allowed to ask the cook to cook something in the middle of the night.”
This is consistent with the "very, very different, more relaxed" royal dining atmosphere at Kensington Palace; the Palace Kitchen author's recipes and memories were described in a separate March interview on the Coffee Friends blog. "It was less formal and family style, with all the food on the sideboard for the princess and the boys to help themselves to," recalled the chef, who also noted that burgers and pizza were among the prince's favorite foods.
In fact, the young royals even once tried to trick Maddie into making them pizza instead of grilled chicken and "lots of greens" as the nanny requested. "Well, I think William or Harry must have looked at the menu and thought 'well, we don't want this,'" he recalled of the time he came to work and found a note addressed to their nanny, Jesse. It was said to be written asking him to give the boys pizza for dinner instead of chicken. "I looked at it and thought 'Why is this the work of a five-year-old?' and then I realized who wrote this." (McGrady eventually served the roast chicken anyway, joking that he " Afraid of the babysitter")
Overall, Princess Diana tried as hard as she could to provide her sons with as normal a childhood as possible. "She did everything she could to prepare us for life," William said in the 2017 book "Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy ," according to Harper's Bazaar . She clearly didn't know what to expect," Harry recalled of their late mother "who would take us out for burgers, or sneak into the cinema, or drive through in her old BMW with the top down. Country roads, listening to Enya’s music,” adding that it was all “part of her motherhood.”
