Secrets from the British royal kitchen

The year was 1987. There was no such thing as a celebrity chef. Gordon Ramsay was just a young commis chef, Jamie Oliver was barely a teenager and no one had even heard of Nigella Lawson. Home cooking was paramount and much sought after, just less televised and glamorous.
It was a gentler time, an era not marked by rabid competition to create the most ostentatious Michelin star-worthy dish. It was at the same time that Carolyn Robb, 21, a budding young chef, fresh out of Le Cordon Bleu and a few short stints at a couple of Swiss restaurants and cafés, was looking for her big break. Then, came a very special invite: to cook for the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and their young children. Appropriate jitters and nervousness aside, Carolyn accepted the job and stepped into the Queen's (of England, of course) cousin's household at Kensington Palace.
About 18 months into the job and a destiny-defining dinner later, she moved a step up, one that she recalls fondly. "I always knew I wanted to cook and I dreamed of cooking for the royal family. I just couldn't believe it actually happened!" says Carolyn, reminiscing that fateful day.
At dinner that night at the Highgrove House was none other than Prince Charles and Princess Diana, who loved the food so much that the very next day they sent Carolyn a letter. "A summons from the desk of the Prince himself. Of course I went!" she exclaims. And standing in his office, she gracefully accepted her new job: to cook for Princess Diana, Prince Charles and William and Harry, who were just four and seven at the time, making her the first female chef for the royal family. Ever. "Prince Charles was very keen on having a female chef in the royal kitchen. I think he said that he would rather have no chef than not have a female chef. He believed that women brought much more homely food to the table than men who usually prepared fancy restaurant-like food."

Prince Charles was no slouch in the fresh produce advocacy department, she states. "He would hunt rabbit and pheasants and bring them to me to be cooked. He would forage for mushrooms - in fact, I went foraging with him on more than a few occasions - and bring back some of the most amazing mushrooms to be made into supper. He was incredibly knowledgeable about food and we never cooked or ate anything that had additives or preservatives in them," she says - something that she saw in her own house when she was growing up. "When I was growing up, we didn't have processed food. Everything was made from scratch and I was very happy to follow that same ethos in the royal kitchen. Prince Charles was, and still is, a very vocal advocate of organic farming and eating healthy food."
She fondly recalls the Prince showing off his produce to his guests whenever he had dinner parties. "He used to grow the most amazing vegetables and we used to have long conversations about the menu and what we could use from the garden. In a way, I consider myself very lucky to have worked for someone who was so involved with food. Today, most chefs order their supplies over the Internet, whereas I was picking food with the prince - the gardener and supplier!"
For 11 years, Carolyn devotedly fed her new family, pouring out her heart and soul into everything she made, influenced by everything she learnt from her mother. She adds that she cooked all sorts of things, a lot of her mother's recipes - "Shepherd's pies, sausages, mash, puddings and cakes; typical English fare" - but when it came down to it, the food she made for the royal family was food she would make for her own family. "Of course, I had been to Cordon Bleu and I had cooked at restaurants before, but what I made for them was healthy, delicious, home-cooked food. Most people think that if you're royalty, you just eat lobster and caviar all day, but that's completely untrue. It was often what was in the garden that day, or what was fished from the river. I think that's why I enjoyed the job so much. I put a lot of myself into the food that I made. A lot of love and effort went into those meals over all those years. Not to mention, the royal family was an absolute delight to work for. Particularly the young princes. They were not at all fussy," she recalls.
It's no wonder then, that her new cookbook, The Royal Touch: Simply Stunning Home Cooking From A Royal Chef, is filled with priceless anecdotes of her experiences in the household and 100 stunning recipes that anyone who loves cooking would cherish. Some of her most treasured memories - Christmas cards from Princess Diana, and notes from Prince Charles commenting on her food - she keeps to this day, some of which have been replicated in her cookbook. One that is particularly touching is a note she received from a very young Prince Harry that simply says "Mummy says its (sic) okay!" She recalls how she used to bake tiny treacle tarts, his favourite, and when he had asked for one on one particular occasion, she sent him to ask for Princess Diana's permission. "He came back moments later with that note in her handwriting. I will always treasure that moment." Another favourite for the boys was her mother's recipe for a chocolate biscuit cake - so much so that Prince William asked Carolyn to make it at his own wedding.

Getting the job
Carolyn was born and brought up in South Africa, where her English mother cooked and baked scrumptious meals and delectable cakes while being constantly shadowed by a young Carolyn. "I had four siblings and was the youngest - by eight years - which meant that when my siblings were off to college and the army and the air force, I was still living at home." She says that her South African father was a gardener extraordinaire. "He grew everything possible and there was such a great variety of fruits and vegetables all year-round. And my mother would turn all those wonderful ingredients into the most amazing meals and desserts. That's really when my passion for cooking took shape," she says. It's also perhaps why she bonded so much with Prince Charles - she saw the same love for gardening in him that her own father displayed.
It was her father that wanted her to get a university education, for which she travelled to the UK when she was almost 17. She was learning foreign languages - German, for starters - but she realised that that wasn't what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. "I took a break from university and went to Switzerland, where I worked at a few restaurants and learnt the corporate side of the restaurant business." She followed that up with a six-month intensive course at Le Cordon Bleu after which she landed her job with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. Then came that memorable dinner where the Gloucesters hosted the Prince and Princess of Wales. "My mother was over the moon when I told her I was to be working for them. I think the greatest honour was when I got to introduce my family to the royal family." There's even a note from Princess Diana on the meet and greet, replicated in the cookbook.
From 1989 to 2000, Carolyn spent almost every moment of every day ensuring that the royal family and their guests were taken care of. She was flying to every corner of the globe as part of the royal entourage, cooking up the house favourites whenever she could. "I remember a few times when I didn't travel with Prince Charles. he sent notes saying that he wished I had tagged along because he hadn't liked the food he had eaten. He was always worried he would have an upset stomach at important meetings." Carolyn adds that he was always quick to give feedback on the food, often leaving behind comment cards congratulating her on the meals. One of them reads: "You excelled yourself this evening for dinner. The first course was a masterpiece! Well done!" Carolyn adds that it was written with his left hand because it was the day he had broken his right hand playing polo.