ARCH’S PRODIGIOUS APPETITE FOR SCOTS CUISINE
BREAKFAS T Porridge Mutton cutlets and beefsteaks Fish and roast Occasional meats Toast/ vegetables Enriched breads LUNCHEON Lamb cutlets Asparagus Cold fowl pudding with fruit compote DINNER Veal knuckle Soup au clear soup oeufs poches Salmon (poached and sole gratin Roast beef and Kitchen grouse Vol-au-vents garden vegetables with béchamel Plum sauce and grilled With tart with fruit eggs a sideboard jellies of cold meats And a selection and cold fowl of breads FAVOURIT John Begg’s best E TIPPLE on the whisky from edge of the Balmoral Lochnagar Distiller known estate – which y to lace into her she was claret Cinnamon rice eggs) on Victoria, there is a scene where Victoria is taking tea on top of a heather-covered mountain, with dark clouds above,ab a wind blowing, thunder clapping, and it epitomisesep what many of her courtiers thought of her picnicspic at Balmoral – but she loved them.
“She loved the everyday consumption of tea boiled overov a small fire up a mountain – although John Brown laterlat said the picnics involved spirits and biscuits.”
As she continued to age, Victoria’s over-fondness for foodfoo took an increasing toll on her health – not helped by a knee injury which left her immobile and needing to relyrel on a donkey cart to get around her Highland estate.
She suffered a vicious attack of gout while at Balmoral, havingha to rely on her daughter Beatrice to “cut up my meatm for me at my solitary little dinner”.
While she was plagued with stomach problems, trapped windwi and indigestion, including at least one occasion wherewh she feared she was having a heart attack, of whichwh her doctor James Reid later wrote: “I fancy her majestym had flatulence.”
Annie notes that by the time Victoria died in 1901, agedag 81 and having served 63 years and seven months on the throne, there were many myths surrounding herhe reign. But she says Victoria’s regal gluttony was not one them. She added: “My book is called the Greedy Queen for goodgo reason.” of