The queen’s former chef told how he fed 12 pets of Elizabeth II.
Darren McGrady, 58, has been cooking for the royal family for 11 years. Not so long ago, the former Buckingham Palace chef started a YouTube channel where he shares the favorite recipes of the monarchs. However, Darren’s most popular video was the one about the royal dogs menu.
“When I was hired to work at the palace, I thought I would cook food for kings, queens and presidents. And so it happened later. But my first job at the palace was cooking for dogs, which I never expected. The corgi had its own menu, and every day new dishes had to be prepared. ”
At the time McGrady was working at the palace, the queen had 12 corgis. They slept in wicker baskets in a special “corgi room” and were looked after by two footmen.
“We called these guys Doggy 1 and Doggy 2,” laughs Darren.
The most important thing in a dog chef job is to make sure there are no bones left in the meat. Otherwise, the corgi might choke. Therefore, Darren chopped the meat into very small cubes, about 3 mm in size. As soon as the food was ready, the footmen carried it to the corgi, and the queen herself fed her dogs.
The royal dogs’ menu included chicken, beef, rabbit, and also liver. Often the meat was mixed with cabbage or rice so that the pets did not have digestive problems.
Darren recalls: when he saw Elizabeth for the first time, she was walking in the park with dogs. “I’ll see the queen! The cook exulted as she walked towards him. However, the corgi, smelling Darren, rushed to him, barking like crazy.
I was so scared of the dogs that I started to run. I only heard the queen laughing at me. She thought it was very funny. Yes, probably. But then I was not laughing.
Not everyone in the yard was delighted with Elizabeth’s pets. Prince William complained that they bark constantly. And Prince Harry once said: “These dogs barked at me all 33 years that I spent in the palace.”
When Elizabeth moved from one palace to another, she took all the pets with her.
Darren recalls: in Sandringham Palace, the Queen’s favorite country estate, her corgi were scampering everywhere, including in the kitchen. Once one of the dogs, smelling the tasty, quietly made her way closer to the oven. At this time, the cook put down the baking sheet and, not noticing the pet, stumbled over him and almost collapsed on the floor.
“In the royal kitchens, everything was like in a normal family – the dogs were constantly running back and forth,” says Darren.
During the flights, the queen also took her pets with her, as well as her entire retinue.
We sat on the plane in tailored suits, and the corgi could climb onto their knees. And then you were all covered in wool. But you can’t push the royal dog away or turn on it, the queen will hear and will not be delighted.
The chef says: The first corgi appeared in the royal palace when Elizabeth was 7 years old. The pet, named Duki, was brought by her father, King George VI. And on her 18th birthday, Elizabeth received her own dog named Susan.
Since then, the queen has had over 30 corgi dogs. This breed has become a part of the royal court for more than 70 years. However, now Elizabeth has a different breed in her favorites – a mixture of a dachshund and a corgi. It was the queen who elevated this cross to the status of an official breed, which was named “dorgi”.