Berry conserves at dawn in royal ‘jam wars’
IT MAY have just been an innocent coincidence. But Buckingham Palace has been accused of engaging in “Jam Wars” with the Duchess of Sussex with the release of a video promoting its own strawberry preserve.
Just days ago, Meghan unveiled the first product from her new commercial venture, American Riviera Orchard, which happened to be a jar of strawberry jam. The product was delivered to up to 50 of her high-profile friends, who have dutifully been promoting the jam on their social media channels.
On Wednesday evening, the Buckingham Palace shop released a short, slickly produced video on its Instagram page showing four of its favourite ways to enjoy its strawberry preserve.
To the soothing tones of Mozart’s “Dissonance” Quartet, the reel shows a woman’s hand slathering the jam on a scone, a crumpet, a croissant, and on toast.
“Our Strawberry Preserve is made using only the finest berries and is delicious served in a variety of ways,” the caption states.
The post asks the shop’s 557,000 followers to share how they enjoy their jam. The timing of the advert did not go unnoticed, attracting almost 400 comments within hours. “Jam wars across the ocean,” joked one follower, while another wrote: “The empire strikes back.”
Others saw fit to take sides. “Buckingham Palace over Montecito any day,” wrote one observer, in reference to the Californian enclave now home to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. “Wait! Did the palace just subtly troll Ms Montecito?” said another.
Some were not so amused. “Very tacky, low blow that was entirely immature,” wrote one follower. The Royal Collection Trust declined to comment.
There’s something suspicious about the jam video released by the Buckingham Palace Shop. It is not suspicious for appearing only days after the Duchess of Sussex launched her own strawberry jam with the American Riviera Orchard label. No, the suspicious factor in the video is a pair of hands scraping some butter off a great block with a knife and spreading it on a crumpet. The hands then shove a knife into a jar of Buckingham Palace Strawberry Preserve put on the tablecloth, to dig some out for the crumpet. Let us hope it is not the same knife that was busy with the butter. A later shot shows a huge bite taken from the crumpet, as if it were a burger. Now a constitutional monarchy allows citizens to eat their jam as they like, but nursery teas at Buckingham Palace were surely conducted with less ham-fisted manners.