The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Tasting notes
A lifelong foodie, the Prince champions rare breeds and organic agriculture
HRH’S focus on rare breeds and organic farming
THE PRINCE OF WALES is a fan of boiled eggs, ‘or sometimes baked’, according to a book on the culinary quirks of the Royal household. His father, it notes, prefers omelettes. Dinner at Buckingham Palace (Bonnier, £12.99) is based on the recollections of Charles Oliver, a royal servant who worked from the reign of Queen Victoria to that of Elizabeth II. He had a fascination for food and took notes on the kitchens, their recipes and the menus served. In Victoria’s reign, for example, a November banquet might have starred fried smelts and ‘fillets of red deer à la royale’. The young Prince Charles, too, could often be found hanging out with the chefs, giving ‘warning when kettles, pots and saucepans were coming to the boil’. He loved roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and making orange ice lollies.
Out of an appetite for good food grew a passion for farming, and the Prince’s childhood spent on the country estates of Sandringham and Balmoral inspired him to devote his life to supporting organic agriculture. In 1985 he began the conversion of Highgrove’s Home Farm to organic, long before it was a hot topic. Seven years later, a Duchy Originals oaten biscuit launched as part of a new range whose ingredients were produced on the estate – the recipe (taste-tested by the Prince) remains unchanged. Waitrose now owns the exclusive licence for the brand, renamed Waitrose Duchy Organic, but the Prince is still involved; it was his idea to introduce seaweed biscuits. And with rare British breeds of pigs, sheep and cattle reared at Home Farm, he is helping to protect their numbers – while ensuring a steady supply of bacon for his eggs.