Duchess of Cornwall admits love of baked beans on toast
THE Duchess of Cornwall has told how her favourite childhood food was Findus frozen chicken pie, with beans on toast considered a treat even now she is an adult.
The Duchess, whose son Tom Parker Bowles has built a career as a food writer, said a book could be filled “with all my cooking disasters”, claiming she is “not a natural baker” and has a habit of forgetting baked potatoes in the Aga to the point of incineration. Her dishes now, she said, are based on good ingredients kept simple, with “nothing too mucked about, or fussy or fiddly”.
Interviewed in the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine in her son’s food column, she gave an insight into her upbringing in a “very happy home, with good food at its heart”.
She lifted the lid on her rivalry with the Prince of Wales over home-grown produce: “My husband is an excellent gardener, and we’re quite competitive about our fruit and vegetables.”
Despite growing up in a home supplied with a range of food grown in the garden and a mother she described as an accomplished cook, the Duchess said: “On Friday nights, at home, we were allowed to choose our dinner.
“I always went for Findus frozen chicken pie, much to my mother’s despair.”
Recalling how excited she was when she first ate the “impossibly exotic” prawn and avocado, she said: “I always cooked for the children growing up, and they were good eaters, but I was never the most adventurous of cooks. I’ve never followed a recipe in my life.”
The Duchess, who has kept her own home in Wiltshire as well as living with the Prince at Highgrove and Clarence House, said she still cooks for herself, enjoying “simple things like fish en papillote with butter and herbs” as well as roast dinners and chicken casserole.
Asked for her favourite food, she suggested: “Baked beans on toast. Always Heinz. And freshly cooked fish and chips, wrapped in paper.”
In an insight many with adult offspring may be familiar with, the Duchess added: “These days, restaurants are a way to see my children. They pick the restaurants, I pay the bill.”