GUEST COLUMN
Tom Parker Bowles
The world according to…
The food writer on his mother Queen Camilla’s cooking and why he and the King are both reassessing what they eat
People
assume we had fleets of kitchen staff when I was growing up, but my mother made all our meals. She was a great cook then and still is. Nothing fancy, just hearty food: scrambled eggs, fresh mince from the local butcher, fruit and veg from the garden.
My children [Lola, 17, and Freddie, 14] call my mum ‘Gaga’ and the King ‘Uppa’. My daughter’s not bad in the kitchen, but she doesn’t really make recipes with Gaga because Mum’s not that kind of cook – her approach has always been instinct and feel; no recipe book, no apron, no fuss. If I ask her how she gets her roast chicken to taste so good, she’ll say, ‘Well, you get a chicken and put it in the oven’. What temperature?