Some forty-plus years ago I met somebody who had a holiday job working at Balmoral Castle - the Queen's Scottish Highland home; and he told me what she ate for her usual breakfast - a meal that he was apparently involved in serving.
So the question is: What did this chap tell me that Queen Elizabeth II had for breakfast?
I shall reveal his (simple) description tomorrow; but meanwhile there is the prize of a Golden Medal (virtual) for any commenter who knows the right answer, or can guess it correctly.
12 comments:
My guess we would be that she had a light breakfast, toast and fruit, maybe an egg, but no meat.
Also, probably tea rather than coffee
tea and crumpets
Beef or mutton stew and a glass of ale.
Oh, sorry, that was Elizabeth 1st. Corn flakes and a cup of tea then with a boiled egg and soldiers at the weekend.
In Balmoral ? OK, I'll be imaginative: Drink: tea - Kippers, Porridge, toast with marmalade.
Smoked salmon with two poached eggs and a pot of strong tea
Kedgeree.
Bangers and mash.
Cap'n Crunch
Well, these are all (except Cap'n Crunch) good suggestions, and indeed many of them might well be true - but they are not what this chap told me.
What he said was:
Kellogg's Cornflakes and Wild Strawberries.
He also said these were sent to Scotland by Harrods from London, daily.
This made an impression on me, because it combined the commonplace with extreme exoticism.
Wild strawberries are one of the nicest things I have ever tasted, but they grow sparsely and are very small (and birds usually get nearly all of them) - and I have never seen any Wild Strawberries for sale. The idea of having WSs every day (at least in season) was very exciting, and the kind of thing only a monarch could aspire to.
Their combination with KCs is, perhaps, on the one hand an example of "the common touch" - QEII sharing in the lifestyle of her subjects; but also fresh cornflakes with good milk, are genuinely delicious, and I imagine that the two would go well together.
I did not much approve of having the food supplied by Harrods, or the wastefulness of sending a van on a thousand mile round trip. I was surprised it wasn't Fortnum and Mason's that was the provider - but what do I know of such things? And Harrods is what he said.
Why not a Scottish supplier? Well, anyone who has lived in Scotland (as I have) will know that getting good quality fruit and veg in shops was not at all easy, or indeed possible, as recently as thirty years ago.
And maybe if Harrods were the only place to provide Wild Strawberries on a daily basis, and they were making the trip anyway...
I was close. I've heard wild strawberries aren't all that different from Crunch Berries.
The Queen may have been the wealthiest woman in the world; but that she should have daily access to such an obscure and glamorously-alien foodstuff as Cap'n Crunch is really too much for a rational man to believe.
Post a Comment