From Coronation Chicken to Earl Grey tea, the Queen’s eating habits helped shape the world’s diet. Throughout her 70-year-reign, what the record-breaking monarch ate and drank and – just as importantly – how she ate and drank it, started trends around the globe.

Possibly the most famous dish invented for the Queen was Coronation Chicken, or Poulet Reine Elizabeth. This curried chicken recipe was first created by Rosemary Hume, principal of the London Le Cordon Bleu school, for the Queen’s Coronation lunch in 1953… and we’ve been eating it in sandwiches ever since.

Afternoon tea

The Queen enjoyed a traditional afternoon tea that included finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off; her favourite fillings included choices like smoked salmon and cream cheese or egg mayonnaise. She also had scones with jam and cream – with the jam on first. The brand? Tiptree had her Royal Warrant. It was accompanied by Earl Grey tea (from Fortnum & Mason or Twinings) and her preference helped make the bergamot-scented black tea popular across the world. She took it with milk and no sugar.

As to how she drank it? She certainly didn’t do so with her little finger sticking out. Her former butler Grant Harrold, who now runs etiquette lessons, revealed that the Queen liked to drink her tea the traditional way: with tea leaves and a strainer. “Pour the tea into the cup from a teapot, add milk to the cup after the tea and never before,” he said. “Stir back and forth – never use a circular motion, and never touch the sides.”

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Home-cooked meals

Palace chefs throughout the Queen’s reign say that she was a no-fuss eater who, despite having to hold frequent banquets, preferred simple dishes at home. It was Prince Philip who was the more adventurous foodie. One of the Queen’s first cooks in the 1950s, Alma McKee, revealed that the Queen would always think of her guests’ preferences, and Philip would frequently surprise her in the kitchen. “He would look into the saucepans, ask questions and crack some very good jokes,” she wrote in her cookbook To Set Before A Queen: The Royal Cookery of Mrs McKee. This was echoed by a more recent royal chef, Darren McGrady. “She’d always have afternoon tea, wherever she was in the world,” he said. “We’d flown out to Australia and were on the Royal Yacht. It was five o’clock in the morning, but for the Queen it was five in the afternoon, so my first job was making scones.”

Her Maj was actually a dab-hand at making scones herself, famously sharing her recipe for drop scones with President Eisenhower, after he visited Balmoral in 1959.

According to McGrady in his book Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen, the Queen enjoyed toast and marmalade for breakfast (Paddington Bear would approve) and poached salmon and venison from Balmoral, the latter in the form of burgers.

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A Royal Warrant

Many of the Queen’s favourite food and drink brands received her Royal Warrant, which ensured everyone could, and still can, enjoy a regal treat. 

She liked Champagne, and was surprisingly generous with her warrants here, awarding a crest to Bollinger, G.H. Mumm, Krug, Lanson, Louis Roederer, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and Pol Roger. Her favourite gin was good old Gordon’s, although she would have also sampled her own Buckingham Palace and Sandringham blends, mixed as she (and the Queen Mother) preferred, with Dubonnet.

The Queen also loved a Bendicks after dinner mint, to which she awarded a Royal Warrant in 1962. In February, she was snapped with a box of them on her desk at Windsor. “We are privileged to have held a Royal Warrant granted by Her Majesty the Queen for 60 years,” spokesperson Alexandra Moston said. When HRH felt like something a little more decadent, she went for a Charbonnel et Walker truffle.

So, as we bid goodbye to Elizabeth II, it’s only fitting we raise a toast to her extraordinary service, in the best possible taste. 

The Queen’s Drop Scones recipe

INGREDIENTS:

4 tea cups flour
4 tbs caster sugar
2 tea cups milk
2 eggs
2 tsp bicarbonate soda
3 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbs melted butter

METHOD:

Beat eggs, sugar and about half the milk together. Add flour and mix well together, adding remainder of milk as required, also bicarbonate and cream of tartar. Fold in the melted butter.

“Enough for 16 people,” she added in handwriting.

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