Queen Camilla once revealed that she’s seen her fair share of "cooking disasters" - so much so that she could "fill a book" with them!
In a sweet interview with her son, the food writer Tom Parker Bowles for You Magazine, the Queen talked all things food - from her early memories to bonding over eating with her children.
Amongst lovely details of her upbringing and insights into the food she still likes to prepare herself - "beans on toast" being a surprising favourite - Queen Camilla shared that she would often find "incinerated" baked potatoes left in the Aga.
She told her son, "I could fill a book with all my cooking disasters. I’m not a natural baker, to say the least."
Explaining her particular blind spot for baked potatoes, Her Majesty joked, "Many a poor, incinerated specimen has been found in the bottom of the Aga, put in, then forgotten about."
Okay, so assuming potatoes are off the menu, what sort of dishes might the Queen like to whip up, whether at Clarence House or relaxing on her summer holidays with King Charles at Balmoral?
She shared, "One of my favourite foods is baked beans on toast. Always Heinz."
She added that this approach to her meals is based on a preference for "nothing too mucked about, or fussy or fiddly".
At the time of the interview, Camilla was still the Duchess of Cornwall, and she revealed that she quite liked to prepare plenty of her own meals. She told Tom, "I do still cook for myself when at home.
"Simple things like fish en papillote with butter and herbs. And vegetables from the garden: kale, purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, courgettes, and lots of peas and beans because they freeze so well."
Queen Camilla also revealed how food has become something to bond over with her children as they’re now grown up with families of their own. She shared in the interview, “These days, restaurants are a way to see my children. They pick the restaurants, I pay the bill.”
Interestingly, Queen Camilla seems to share an aversion to something that her mother-in-law, the late Queen Elizabeth II, also reportedly didn’t have stocked often in the royal kitchens. Camilla revealed, “I avoid chilli and garlic too.”
According to former royal chef Darren McGrady, the late Queen Elizabeth “didn’t like garlic or strong onions, viewing them as antisocial".
