{"id":338075,"date":"2025-08-12T09:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/338075\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T09:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T09:22:10","slug":"princess-diana-only-served-this-food-when-william-harry-were-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/338075\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess Diana Only Served This Food When William & Harry Were Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Princess Diana\u2019s<\/a> approach to food was famously disciplined, but her former chef <\/a>says the Princess of Wales<\/a> made one notable exception<\/a> when her sons were around. <\/p>\n

Darren McGrady, who spent 11 years cooking for Queen Elizabeth II<\/a> before joining Diana at Kensington Palace<\/a> in 1993, revealed the surprising dish that appeared on the menu only when Princes William<\/a> and Harry<\/a> were at the table.<\/p>\n

As reported by InStyle<\/a>, McGrady said Diana\u2019s day-to-day meals reflected a clean, light style. \u201cShe never ate pork,\u201d he said. \u201cOccasionally, she\u2019d have lamb when she was entertaining guests, but for the most part it was chicken, fish, or vegetarian options.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added that the beloved princess \u201cwas into healthy eating, so we never had beef on the menu unless the boys were home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving from Buckingham Palace to Kensington meant reworking his cooking. \u201cWhen I was cooking for her [Diana], I had to change my style of cooking,\u201d he said. \u201cI had to move from cooking food for the Queen\u2014heavy sauces, rich sauces and creams\u2014to start cooking lighter food again, cutting out the fats, cutting out the carbs.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to McGrady<\/a>, Diana was clear about the plan: \u201cShe would say, \u2018You take care of all the fats, and I\u2019ll take care of all the carbs at the gym.\u2019 So dishes like tomato mousse, which she really liked, she\u2019d say, \u2018Make me a fat-free version.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lunch at Kensington: Comfort Food\u2014& Occasionally McDonald\u2019s<\/p>\n

The royal chef further revealed <\/a>that the palace menu often shifted toward \u201cnursery-friendly\u201d comfort food when William and Harry <\/a>were home from boarding school. <\/p>\n

It changed from Princess Diana<\/a>\u2019s healthy eating\u2014stuffed peppers, eggplant, vegetarian dishes\u2014to nursery food,\u201d McGrady said. \u201cWills and Harry loved cottage pie, pizza, chicken nuggets, French fries, potato wedges, macaroni cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n

On occasion, the princess <\/a>was also known to switch things up. <\/p>\n

McGrady revealed to People <\/a>that one afternoon, \u201cthe princess came in and said, \u2018Cancel lunch today. I\u2019m taking them out.\u2019\u201d When he asked where, \u201cshe said, \u2018McDonald\u2019s.\u2019\u201d He protested\u2014\u201cI said, \u2018I can do burgers better than McDonald\u2019s,\u2019\u201d he remembered\u2014only to get the matter-of-fact response, \u201cshe said, \u2018I know that, Darren, but they want the toys and the Happy Meal.\u2019 They would get fast food sometimes, just like normal families with children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with those indulgences, the princess balanced discipline with delight\u2014making space for the boys\u2019 favorites, a spontaneous drive-thru, and, yes, the occasional beef dinner<\/a> when William and Harry were home.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Princess Diana\u2019s approach to food was famously disciplined, but her former chef says the Princess of Wales made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7714,7713,533,2832,532,2831,7710,519,7711,7712],"class_list":{"0":"post-338075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-catherine","10":"tag-catherine-middleton","11":"tag-kate-middleton","12":"tag-prince-of-wales","13":"tag-prince-william","14":"tag-princess-of-wales","15":"tag-royal-families","16":"tag-royal-family","17":"tag-uk-royal-family","18":"tag-william"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115015067972106800","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}