Winning Schools Announced
Four schools have been selected as winners of Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall's competition inviting schools to create a special Diamond Jubilee menu for The Queen.
Mark Flanagan, Royal Chef at Buckingham Palace, has selected the winning schools from over 200 entries.
The four schools are now being invited to Buckingham Palace in June to see their recipes prepared by the Royal Chef and will help serve them at a special reception attended by The Queen and The Duchess of Cornwall.
'Cook for The Queen' is the idea of The Duchess of Cornwall and is her special tribute to The Queen for the Diamond Jubilee.
As part of British Food Fortnight, the national celebration of food that The Duchess supports, schools across the country have been invited to create a special menu for The Queen that celebrates the food produced in their part of the country.
In choosing the winners, the Royal Chef looked at the amount of class work and extra-curricula research that schools had done.
Also taken into consideration was how they had used local produce, whether their menus truly are fit for The Queen and how the schools planned on incorporating 'Cook for The Queen' into their Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
The winning schools are: -
- Cape Cornwall School near Penzance
- Latimer Arts College near Kettering
- St Columba’s Primary School from Oban in Scotland
We are hugely impressed by the very high standard of the menus that schools have created for Her Majesty. Professional chefs across the country wanting to offer Diamond Jubilee menus in their pubs, hotels and restaurants could draw inspiration from what the children have come up with.
Everyone involved is looking forward to seeing the children's menus prepared for The Queen and it is great that the children are coming to Buckingham Palace to help.
Alexia Robinson, organiser of the competition, commenting on the quality of the entries.
Their menus for The Queen include a wonderful array of dishes drawing upon local produce from their part of the country with a Royal theme: -
- Royal Anchovy Biscuits with Asparagus Spears
- King Charles II Syllabub, Beefeater's Delight (Duchess potatoes with horseradish and Gloucester beef)
- Will's Spot of Windsor (Gloucester Old Spot pork on a courgette and potato rosti with Windsor apple sauce)
- Harry's Hungry Hunt (Wood pigeon skewers served with spiced beetroot and pomegranate molasses chutney)
- Luv'lee Jub’lee Bub’lee (elderflower, strawberry and champagne soup), Lavender Shortbread (because The Queen looks lovely in lavender)
- Figs with Argyll Ham and Isle of Mull Blue Cheese
- Dainty Elizabeth (sage and onion scone nesting on a bird with a fanned turkey meat tail, a quail's egg body and a carved tomato head and beak)
- Diamond Slippers (petite Genoese cake and sugar paste slippers, studded with E & R in edible diamonds)
- Golden Carriages (filo pastry carriages, filled with diced apricots, pistachios and honey)
You can see full details of the winning menus and the activities that the schools undertook to create them.
For further information about Cook for The Queen, see www.lovebritishfood.co.uk.