Why Cooking For Queen Elizabeth Can Be Difficult, According To A Former Chef

Queen Elizabeth is rather partial to her afternoon tea that often includes a serving of scones with jam and cream. A former chef at the royal palace, Darren McGrady once revealed in a YouTube video, "She'd always have afternoon tea wherever she was in the world. We'd flown out to Australia and were on the Royal Yacht. It was five o'clock in the morning but for the Queen it was five in the afternoon so my first job was making scones."

McGrady also mentioned that the Queen preferred to select the menu every week and looked at a list of recipes in advance, eliminating the dishes that didn't appeal to her. McGrady told Hello! Magazine, "The chefs would pick the menus and she would put a line through the ones she didn't want. Sometimes she'd put a line through it all and put something different." He added that the Queen really enjoyed an occasional serving of crème brulee and Sandringham oranges. Per McGrady, preparing food for the Queen on a regular basis was not an easy task because of one thing in particular (via Delish).

Per Darren McGrady, what made it tough to cook for Queen Elizabeth was the fact that she didn't like to sample new dishes as much which meant that she would often end up sticking to the same food items. He said in a Delish interview, "The queen wasn't a real foodie. And I soon learned that she eats to live. She doesn't live to eat. And so the menus that we did were pretty much the same again and again all the time."

He also said that whenever the team tried to present a new recipe, they had to first show the entire recipe to the Queen and make sure that she knew what the ingredients were. McGrady added, "...It was difficult trying to put new dishes on all the time." 

That's not all, though. According to The Telegraph, there are certain restrictions at the royal palace that must be kept in mind at all times: for example, the Queen completely avoids consuming carb-heavy foods such as pasta for dinner. McGrady explained, "'When she dines on her own she's very disciplined. No starch is the rule...Just usually something like grilled sole with vegetables and salad."