Dishwasher salmon, and treasured memories of a royal retreat

It’s a simple and understated hardcover book – A taste of Mey: Memories and Recipes. there is a foreword by Prince Charles, and it is a gentle and chiefly culinary portrait of the late Queen Mother’s life at her Highland retreat.

though she enjoyed four other residences, the Castle of Mey, by the rugged coast of Caithness and under great northern skies, was the only home Elizabeth ever actually owned.

she bought the derelict heap in 1952, just months into sudden and desolate widowhood and when she had lost not only her husband but much status – and her job.

Protracted restoration of the building – it would be 1955 before she could actually spend a night there – gave her something to do and, by the Coronation of her daughter in June 1953, renewed focus and purpose, as with growing confidence she found a new place in life as the nation’s grandmother.

that her late man, King George VI, had never gone near the place was a big part of that healing, allowing her to carve a new base with no painful associations.

the Queen Mother, from her marriage in 1923 to the end of her very long life 79 years later, was a star in a family that has produced hardly any of them.

she had an aura that preceded her by hundreds of yards, a smile that melted the stoutest republican spirit, a gift for making whomever she was with feel the most important and fascinating person in the world – and always, unfailingly, knew where the cameras were.

KAtE and Meghan are but mannequins by comparison and, unlike the only other two royalties who had the charisma of the ‘celeb’ – her brother-in-law, Edward VIII, and the late Diana – Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s course finally ended without disgrace or disaster.

After her sustained and calm example to the nation through the second World War – those ‘years like great black oxen’, as she once declared, quoting Yeats – her place was sealed as a national treasure.

From 1945 she could do no wrong – and that was just as well because, for all her tireless appearances and public engagements into her 102nd year, the Queen Mother lived life to the full, at gulping cost.

the Castle of Mey itself was an instance. though she used it for only six weeks of the year, its annual running costs were latterly half a million pounds.

Nor did Elizabeth care to dine each evening without a glass or two of Krug, at £300 a bottle. At Clarence House alone she retained 83 servants and her racing expenses were annually a six-figure sum.

she once forwarded a daunting bill for her stables and steeplechasers to her daughter, penning self-consciously at the bottom: ‘Oh dear.’

When officials and politicians started to quaver a bit, suave Palace officials soothed them, pointing out that this was a little old lady who would not, in the course of nature, be a charge on the public purse much longer. In fact, the Queen Mother was then still in her seventies – and with decades more in the tank.

It was no Marie Antoinette excess but simply what, for ladies of her class, was the normal way of life through that long, golden Edwardian summer before the Great War.

Indeed, not a few great houses lived far more extravagant lives than the Royal Family and were apt to look down on them as middleclass German parvenus.

Nor was Elizabeth some feather-brained philistine. she was an immensely well-read woman whose circle of intimates included poets, authors and philosophers.

she amassed a significant collection of daring, modern British art and her correspondence – which was voluminous – sparkles. ‘tinkety-tonk, old fruit,’ she concluded one missive, in the depths of the war, ‘and down with the Nazis.’

A taste of Mey is especially enjoyable, in our day of celebrity chefs and gastroporn television, because it isn’t really about cooking.

It is a book about how to eat; it details primarily the hearty scottish fare the Queen Mother particularly enjoyed on Highland holidays and – from herrings in oatmeal through roast rib of beef to stornoway clootie dumpling and (we kid you not) ‘dishwasher salmon’ – it’s the sort of honest nosh you actually want to scoff.

there are tricks and shortcuts we all use in real kitchens, even if they would have the Brothers Roux in entire conniptions. tomato puree out of a tube, jars of supermarket carbonara sauce, tinned vegetables and the occasional reassurance that ‘a stock cube is fine’ pepper the text.

Of course, the Queen Mother had her own decided preferences, as her official biographer William shawcross confides in this volume.

HER Majesty loved haddock and other simple fish such as sole. Her chef served her monkfish once and never again. she insisted that fruits and vegetables be in season and preferably British. she thought spanish strawberries tasted like turnips. Queen Elizabeth loved omelettes and disliked smoked salmon, oysters, coconuts and capers.

‘In scotland, nothing gave her more pleasure than picnics and they happened almost every day, rain, snow or shine. Again, the food was simple or fun, especially the jam puff and cream pastries which would explode all over the faces of the uninitiated. And, to create the right atmosphere, a glass of something was always welcome – gin and Dubonnet on picnics, champagne on many other occasions.’

Most of the Queen Mother’s guests certainly recall pre-dinner cocktails of ‘such a strength they knocked you sideways’.

But she was in no way precious. Post-dinner entertainment at Mey was often assembling all to watch videos of Miss Marple or Dad’s Army. By day, she stumped the shore in search of shells, befriended crofters and farmhands, and took bracing walks in conditions she thought refreshing, locals as ‘a bit rough’, and her guests as a hurricane.

In her hundredth year her great-grandsons, William and Harry, initiated her into the blinged East staines Massive humour of Ali G and the doughty dowager found new fun in an old word. One Friday at Mey, being served fish and potato wedges, she suddenly stood, clicked the fingers of both hands and declared: ‘Wicked! It’s chips for lunch.’

One October day, the Queen Mother asked a member of staff, Nancy McCarthy, if she had seen any wild geese arrive for the winter. ‘I have seen them every year for 50 years at Mey and I do hope I see them this year.’ Days later, she murmured again: ‘still no sign of the geese?’ McCarthy had to reply: ‘No, sorry, Ma’am.’

soon came the morning when Elizabeth had to leave for England. she came hesitatingly down the stairs, said her farewells with a certain emphasis, and was about to step into her transport when, suddenly, a flock of geese appeared overhead, in perfect V-formation.

the Queen Mother beamed and said: ‘I’m happy now.’

that was October 2001. she never saw Mey again.