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Prince William and his wife, the Princess of Wales (formerly known as Kate Middleton), made a surprise trip to Northern Ireland recently. 

The royal couple visited Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service’s new Learning and Development College, the Mallon Farm in County Tyrone, and an award-winning family-run farm in the heart of County Armagh called Long Meadow Cider. While there, the princess shared her love for apple cider vinegar, telling locals that she puts it on salads when cooking at home.

As she was learning about the production process at Long Meadow Farm, Kate had a drink of the cider and said, “I like that. I haven’t taken it as a shot like this before but I love to put it in salads and things like that.”

The comment sparked the ongoing fascination about what members of the royal family eat in a day. Many believe they only consume the finest foods, but a former royal chef is revealing that’s not always true. Here’s more on that, plus the very odd way they eat certain foods.

These were the royal family’s favorite foods

Darren McGrady was a chef at Buckingham Palace for more than a decade, cooking for Queen Elizabeth II. He was later transferred to Kensington Palace, where he worked as Princess Diana’s personal chef up until her death in 1997

Speaking on behalf of Heart Bingo, McGrady shared some of the royal’s favorite foods, telling Showbiz Cheat Sheet: “The [late] Queen Elizabeth II traditionally had British food, especially if it was local food, and also French cuisine … Prince Charles loved Italian food, he loved all the risottos and things like that. He loved the simple, clean Mediterranean diet.

“He loved wild mushrooms, he loved to go foraging for them at Balmoral. He would come back and we would freeze enough to last through the year. Princes William and Harry loved American food. They loved burgers, fries, sticky ribs, and barbecue. They loved all the American fast food at the time.”

McGrady added, “We did try to experiment quite a lot. We would send recipes up to the queen and she would look at it and say yes or no. Or we would send recipes to the nannies for William and Harry. They all wanted to broaden their palettes, so they did try lots of different foods. But the queen tended to stick to the same foods. It was difficult to try and get new things on the menu. If I had said would you like to try kangaroo, I think she would have thrown the menu book at me.”

The odd way the royals eat fruits

The former royal chef also confirmed those rumors over the years about the strange way the family eats different fruits.

McGrady explained the unusual technique they have when it comes to eating bananas, saying they “take the banana and cut it, and actually open it up to slice it into rings. You would then eat the rings with a knife and forks.”

And for pears, they would “slice off the top and eat it like a boiled egg. You would eat it with a teaspoon from the inside, leaving the shell. The pears were always incredibly ripe, like every fruit that we ever sent to the table.”