Tom Parker Bowles, Son of Queen Camilla, Dishes on Royal Food
My chat with the award-winning British writer about his new book, ‘Cooking and the Crown.’
When it comes to royal topics, fashion is my forte. But an email about royal food, from the publisher of a new cookbook, caught my eye — particularly the name of the author: Tom Parker Bowles.
The award-winning British food writer is the eldest child of Queen Camilla as well as the godson and stepson of King Charles III. I first registered Parker Bowles’s work on a trip to London many years ago, when I spotted one of his many books in a stately display at Fortnum & Mason (he has penned several of their celebrated cookbooks). He is also the long-time restaurant critic for the Mail on Sunday and serves as a regular guest judge on BBC’s MasterChef. In 2010, Parker Bowles won the Guild of Food Writers Award.
In two decades of writing professionally, Parker Bowles has steered clear of royal food — until now. Cooking and the Crown dives all the way in, and all the back as it were, tracing tastes from Queen Victoria to King Charles. It is, first and foremost, a cookbook, filled with 100 recipes he hopes readers will try. There are step-by-step directions for everything from Queen Mary’s birthday cake to Queen Elizabeth II’s curry and the Queen Mother’s Gin & Dubonnet. The book is also a delightful read, a combination of historical insights (many gleaned from research at the Royal Archives in Windsor) as well as more recent learnings (including from Royal Chef Mark Flanagan).
Throughout Cooking and the Crown, Parker Bowles offers his clever commentary and authoritative guidance. It was a taste of what was to come when we Zoomed this week. He was, to use a very British term, brilliant — deliciously unguarded and well-versed on all things related to royal food.
Below you will find our wide-ranging conversation, beginning with how he got into food writing (thanks to a boarding school-incited greed) and whether he sought permission from the palace to write this book. He regaled me with stories of Victoria and Edward VII’s lavish eating habits, the importance of “soufflé diplomacy,” and what it is like to dine with his mother and stepfather (garlic is never on the table).
Cooking and the Crown is available wherever you get your books. It would make a great gift for a foodie or royal enthusiast this holiday season! You can request a copy from your local independent bookstore, as well as find it on Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.
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🎉 Cooking and the Crown Giveaway
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The team at Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, has generously offered to give away three copies of Cooking and the Crown to our SMT community. There are two steps to enter: 1) Tap the heart button at the top of this email, which will help others find the newsletter and 2) click below to leave a comment (it can be something as simple as an emoji or more elaborate, like your favorite British dish). Best of luck!
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Tom Parker Bowles Dishes on Royal Food
Please note: Our conversation has been edited and condensed.
Tom, hello! Let’s start at the beginning. What made you want to be a food writer?
Tom Parker Bowles: I grew up in the country. My mother, you might not think it now, but she cooked for two children. My father was a good gardener, my mother was a good cook. It was a really happy English upbringing until the age of eight, when I sent off to prep school, which a lot of people did. It was of our generation. The food was vile — dull and dreary. Everything that’s bad about British food was summed up in this disgusting slop that we were served: scummy flaps of bacon, oily fried eggs that were hard as ice hockey pucks and tasted of fish. The sausages, to use someone else’s description, were slurry-filled condoms.
It just shocked me. I was absolutely appalled — outraged, really — about how bad this food was. That changed a very normal appetite into greed. So if I can thank Summer Fields near Oxford for anything, it is definitely putting in me this absolute, all-encompassing greed.