Camilla Parker Bowles‘ son, Tom, is a well-known food writer, critic, and chef. He has built a successful career around his passion for food, but some of his best food memories and the one dish he can’t resist come from his childhood. He believes his love of the culinary arts stems from watching his mother’s quirky cooking habits.
Tom Parker Bowles shares secrets of Camilla Parker Bowles’ most beloved dish
Tom Parker Bowles shares many mouthwatering recipes in his new cookbook, Cooking, and the Crown: Royal Recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III. But perhaps some of his best food memories come from the kitchen of his mother, Camilla, Queen Consort.
In a Vanity Fair interview, Tom shares food memories of Camilla in the kitchen, cooking up simple English staples. He pays homage to one of these in his book with an easy recipe he grew up eating and still can’t resist: her porridge.
At its simplest, porridge is a hot cereal that can contain a variety of grains, boiled in water or milk, until they are a mushy consistency. The closest Americans have to porridge is oatmeal, but in other countries, porridge can be made with rice, cornmeal, wheat, buckwheat, quinoa, millet, and farro.
Tom spoke of Camilla’s beehives and the honey generated from these bees, which adds a touch of sweetness to her porridge. The honey she and King Charles do not consume is bottled and sold at London’s Fortnum & Mason department store.
Tom says Camilla Parker Bowles’ roast chicken recipe comes a close second to her porridge
Typical of most English households, a roast chicken is prepared on Sundays. Camilla Parker Bowles’ cooked her version of the beloved dish for her family, including her ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles and their children Tom and Laura.
To Vanity Fair, Tom shared his mother’s quirky cooking habits influenced everything she did in the kitchen. She rarely followed a recipe and was intuitive and fearless in her cooking skills.
“I grew up in the country, and my mother was a really good cook. We had very English food—a roasted chicken and salmon and trout and game,” Tom explains. “English food is massively underappreciated because, at its best, it’s very, very simple. You need to have the best ingredients to do it.
“My mother wouldn’t ever have a recipe, she’d just get all the ingredients for a sauce—all the ugly fats as well—and put it on the hob. She would chuck in a whole thing of double cream and mix it, then go to the garden, grab a handful of tarragon and mix it, and pour it back over the chicken,” Tom revealed.
Tom reveals Camilla’s simple breakfast recipe
Camilla Parker Bowles takes a cooking class in 2019 | Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Breakfast is one of the first meals most novice cooks learn to prepare in the kitchen. These dishes are simple to prepare and take very little time; unless you are Camilla Parker Bowles.
Tom explains that the simplest of dishes, scrambled eggs, are often quickly prepared. However, Camilla’s twist on the breakfast staple takes longer than most.
He reveals his mother told him cooking scrambled eggs shouldn’t be rushed. Instead, they should be cooked for a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes.
The New York Times shared a recipe that originated from American culinary expert James Beard. It echoes Camilla’s method of cooking scrambled eggs. Beard believes a low and slow preparation method results in a silky, outrageously good basic breakfast.
Camilla Parker Bowles currently has royal chefs to prepare meals for her and King Charles. However, she still heads to the kitchen to prepare the simple meals she passed on to her children.
