After Meghan Markle Adds Fuel to Rumors About Banned Royal Family Foods in ‘With Love Meghan,’ Queen’s Elizabeth’s Former Chef Sets Record Straight
Season 2 of Meghan Markle‘s Netflix show With Love, Meghan recently debuted on the streaming platform. In one episode, the duchess made a comment about Prince Harry not eating a particular food, and that has people wondering about the royal family’s so-called banned-food list.
In her series, the Suits alum revealed that her husband doesn’t like lobster. That admission added fuel to the long-standing rumors that the royals avoid eating seafood due to food poisoning concerns.
Now, a chef who cooked for the family for several years is laying out who didn’t and didn’t eat what and why.
What the late Queen Elizabeth ate and didn’t eat
Darren McGrady was a chef at Buckingham Palace for more than a decade, cooking for Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, and others. He was later transferred to Kensington Palace, where he worked as Princess Diana’s chef to her and her boys up until her death in 1997.
McGrady addressed the rumors that the royals were banned from eating seafood and shared that while some ingredients were off the menu, shellfish wasn’t one of them.
Speaking on behalf of Heart Bingo, McGrady told Showbiz Cheat Sheet: “When I worked for the family, garlic and strong onions were a big no-no. The late queen came from the Victorian era, when garlic was anti-social because of the strong smell. Prince Philip, however, would have lots of garlic on his food. He didn’t care! The idea that the queen didn’t eat seafood while traveling isn’t true. We regularly cooked scallops and shrimp for her.”
McGrady added: “The late queen had a deep appreciation for traditional British cuisine, especially when it featured locally sourced ingredients, but she also had a fondness for French food. So much so that menus were often written in French for her.
“We did a lot of experimenting with recipes. We would send new dishes up to the late queen for her approval, and she would either accept or reject them … the queen tended to prefer sticking with familiar favorites. Introducing new items to her menu was always a challenge. If I had suggested something like kangaroo, I’m pretty sure she would have thrown the menu book at me!”
Chef shares what other royals, including Harry, ate when he worked for them
McGrady revealed that now-King Charles had no problems straying away from the comfort food his mother enjoyed and indulging in new things.
“King Charles, on the other hand, preferred Italian food, particularly risottos and other staples of the Mediterranean diet,” the chef said. “He also had a passion for wild mushrooms and often went foraging for them at Balmoral. We would freeze his finds to last through the year.”
“As for Princes William and Harry, their tastes leaned more towards American classics,” McGrady recalled. “They loved burgers, fries, sticky ribs, and barbecue. At the time, they couldn’t get enough of American-style fast food.”
McGrady previously relayed a story to Coffee Friend about how Prince Harry actually instructed him on how to cook the “American bacon” he liked.
“I remember they came back from Disney in the U.S. [Harry] was about 8 or 9,” McGrady explained. “He asked, ‘Can I have bacon, please? Can I have bacon and scrambled eggs?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely, yeah.’ So I started right away. And he said ‘Can I have crispy bacon? In America, we had crispy bacon. It was so good. And what you do is once you’ve cooked it, you put it on some paper towel in the microwave and it goes really crispy.’”
