Queen Camilla may be consort to King Charles and have access to the most intricate cuisines in the world but her favourite breakfast is very common and enjoyed by many across the globe.
Camilla’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, has given an unprecedented insight into the everyday lives of the royal couple in his new cookbook, Cooking and the Crown, which details the history of food within the royal family.
In the book, Tom explains how his mother eats two different kinds of breakfast – porridge in the winter and yoghurt in the summer.
He writes: “In winter, my mother eats porridge every day — plain, aside from a little of her own honey.
“The hives sit at the back of a field at Ray Mill, the house in which my sister and I spent the latter part of our youth. During winter, all is quiet. But come the summer, we tend to give those hives a wide berth.
“My mother gives most of her honey to Fortnum & Mason, where it is sold in special jars, with all proceeds going to one of her charities.
“It’s delicate and mild, as fine stirred into a good Darjeeling tea as it is mixed with porridge or yoghurt.”
The Queen’s breakfast is packed full of benefits as oats have been found to help with one’s health in different ways, as well as aid weight loss.
Oats are high in soluble fibre and carbohydrates and provide a prolonged energy release thus making us feel fuller for longer.
Some of their other benefits include helping with cholesterol, blood sugar, heart disease and gut health while they also provide a number of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.
For lunch, the Queen makes no fuss either. Her son describes: “Queen Camilla, my mother, eats a very light lunch – a bowl of chicken soup, perhaps, or some smoked salmon – and the King doesn’t eat lunch at all.
“Tea however is a serious, though very relaxed meal, wherever it may be. While dinners, away from the official pomp and circumstance, are very laid back indeed.”
He adds: “State banquets, though, are still as glittering and gilded as they always were, held up to three times per year, at either St George’s Hall at Windsor (where the table, made in 1846, is 53m long seating up to 160 guests) or the ballroom in Buckingham Palace, with its large horseshoe table.”
Cooking And The Crown by Tom Parker Bowles was published on September 26, priced £30 and you can buy it here.