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Queen Elizabeth Has Eaten This Particular Dish Every Day Since Childhood

As one who comes from royalty, Queen Elizabeth certainly has a very specific food palette. Whether she’s enjoying a delectable collection of dark chocolate or a cup of Earl Grey tea, the monarch has a selection of favorite dishes she eats fairly regularly. However, Her Majesty has a particular meal that she’s eaten every day since her youth. 

According to the royal’s former personal chef Darren McGrady, she loves eating her tried-and-true “jam penny” every day, which has been a staple in her diet for many years. The sandwich is simply made up of three ingredients: bread, jam and butter. And if you want to be really fancy, add a bit of strawberry jam to it, he explains. (And just so happens to be the Queen’s flavor of choice.)

Queen Elizabeth eating food with a group of people.
Anwar Hussein/Getty Images

“We’d make the jam at Balmoral Castle with gorgeous Scottish strawberries from the gardens,” he said, according to The List

McGrady also revealed the meaning behind “penny” in the sandwich name. He told the publication the word penny refers to the “size of the old English penny.”

Speaking of favorite foods, Her Royal Highness likes to indulge in simple and plain meals. In an earlier interview with Coffee Friend, McGrady described the royal’s food tastes as “frugal.”

Queen Elizabeth Cutting a Cake CAT
Chris Jackson - WPA Pool/Getty Images

“The one thing you can say about the Queen is that she is very frugal,” he explained. “It was one of the things that really surprised me, when I moved from The Savoy to Buckingham Palace, I thought every day would be smoked salmon, foie gras, caviar, but no. The Queen is very, very frugal, and it’s simple and plain foods. That comes from her early years of growing up during the war.”

From our go-to snacks to guilty pleasure meals, we’ve never related to the queen more.

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Assistant Editor, News And Entertainment

Karelle McKay is the Assistant Editor of News and Entertainment at PureWow. Before she started writing about all things pop culture, she was a literal couch potato who loved...