Want to Eat Like the Queen? It Means Lots of Mangoes (and No Garlic)

Having a personal cooking staff means you can be as picky as you want when it comes to meals, and, according to former Buckingham Palace chef John Higgins, it also means you can be discerning on behalf of your dogs.

Higgins told the National Post that when he cooked for the royal family, the pups got the royal treatment too; once when preparing a meal for the Queen’s corgis, he put rabbit meat through a grinder rather than hand-dicing and was told to start over.

The Queen also has a ban on garlic, according to Higgins. If you find that appalling, know that she isn’t totally crazy when it comes to food: She is a big fan of chocolate (one of her favorite desserts is a chocolate mousse), citrus, and mango. While we don’t know what dessert Elizabeth will enjoy for her 90th birthday on April 21, hopefully the current chef knows all her personal food quirks. “The Queen didn’t like lumpy custard,” Higgins told the National Post.

Much has been written about how the Queen and entire royal family eat (and even about the Queen Mother’s fridge). It’s been reported that she likes meat, fish, fruit, fresh produce, cereal, afternoon sandwiches and scones, gin, and, well, an endless array of foods that pretty much anyone would like (though she apparently eschews potatoes). If none of that sounds terribly exciting, that might be because the Queen doesn’t worship at the altar of fine dining the way some might expect. Darren McGrady, a former royal chef, told The Telegraph: “Sadly, the Queen is not a foodie. She eats to live, unlike Prince Philip who loves to eat and would stand and talk food all day.”