Queen Elizabeth Can't Stand This Type Of Seafood
When you are part of the royal family, your culinary cravings are generally only limited by your imagination and your personal taste preferences. With an army of personal professional chefs tending to her daily menus, Queen Elizabeth II has never been lacking in enticing meal options, no matter the time of day (via Express).
But one food item you will never see on her plate — at least not from her own attentive kitchen staff — are oysters. This shellfish staple enjoyed in raw bars, roasts, and high-end restaurants the world over apparently repulses the queen and her late husband Prince Philip. Or at least that's the dish from the British celebrity news magazine HELLO!.
While tabloid gossip isn't necessarily the best source for news, this specific bivalve-related revelation was corroborated in a book called "Dinner at Buckingham Palace," a collection of recipes from the royal households written and curated by a former royal family cook named Charles Oliver, per the Daily Local News.
The royal family avoids shellfish when traveling
The Queen always tries to avoid oysters, but her list of verboten items expands to all shellfish when she is either dining out or traveling abroad, as she so often does.
This is due to the heightened risk of foodborne illness from eating raw or improperly cooked shellfish, which includes clams, mussels, scallops, or the aforementioned oysters. The CDC warns that raw or undercooked oysters and other shellfish can cause food poisoning or even death. Members of the royal family therefore act with an abundance of caution to avoid shellfish while engaging in their diplomatic globetrotting.
Despite her aversion to oysters and the special precautions the Queen and the royal family take with respect to shellfish, England's most prominent figurehead does regularly indulge in some seafood. Another tasty nugget Charles Oliver divulges in his book of royal recipes is that the Queen's favorite meal is Morecambe Bay potted shrimp (via Daily Local News). He writes that the decadent delight is "cooked and marinated in this secret spicy butter. And then the Queen would have them with warm toast, and when you spread them on the warm toast, the butter melts."
It's good to be the Queen.