Henry VIII’s kitchens at Hampton Court had 200 staff in 55 rooms. Nowadays, when Henry’s kitchen spit is turned and the meat is roasted – properly – for our visitors to see, it’s very resource-intensive. But so worth it, done well. It’s meltingly delicious.
My own office life at Hampton Court is somewhat challenging food-wise. It’s miles from anywhere, off the Chapel Court, deep inside the palace, up a spiral staircase of 51 steps. You can’t just nip out for a sandwich. If we do go out it’s down and then right across to the canteen, which is more mainstream, if you like, than at Kensington Palace, but has a really good salad bar.
I’m very interested in Queen Victoria’s younger years at Kensington Palace. She was born in the dining room because it had stairs down to hot water in the kitchen. Her food was controlled and she was always somewhat dysfunctional in her eating as a result. She gorged. And she used eating as a tool to negotiate with adults.
As a child I ate all sorts of veg because my mother was a hippie and grew them all and made our clothes. We lived a 1970s university lecturer’s suburban lifestyle. I helped dig up potatoes, a very important part of our life. Mum made blackberry jam and rosehip syrup.
I used to go camping a lot with Dad and we made food out of packets, which I’ve been weirdly fond of as an adult. You just add water, like Angel Delight.
Dad’s a retired physical geographer, apparently. If I say “geologist”, he’d say “I’m not that hardcore”. Once he and I took a Land Rover around Iceland with great boxes of dry ingredients. We went there more than once and I was less than 10, but we never ate Icelandic food. We had packet mince, created by adding water. We carried everything, including a Mars Bar per day, which certainly wouldn’t have been allowed if mother was around.
My brother and I hid chocolates from our parents. We had a secret stash of Curly Wurlys. And there was a bottle of red liquor in our parents’ drinks cupboard. We’d drink from it and top up with water, so it was diluted and paler and paler until almost clear. It had a wolf on the label so we called it the Wolf Drink.
When I was about 13, my mum had a slipped disc and had to lie on her back, so I became the family cook for six months and enjoyed it. She always – and still does – considered herself to be the superior cook. I was the pretender; I never took the crown.
At university I cooked for three years in pans on camping gas in my room. It was totally illegal and when I think about the fire risk in a historic building, I shudder. I used to do lentils, stir-fries and – to try and impress friends – chicken in a white sauce.
I have given up driving so I shop every day on the way home – but I used to do a lot of driving. I was visiting castles for English Heritage and even back when I was working at Bolsover Castle and going to Nottingham University to do research in the evening, a great place to eat on the way home was Leicester Forest East service station (on the M1). The other place I liked was Little Chef. If I was staying by myself in a B&B, I’d be quite happy to drive to a Little Chef and have vegetarian lasagne. It was a pleasant part of my routine.
I’ve most liked dressing up as a flapper. I’ve been flappered twice. But I care not only about the clothes they wore but what they stood for. It’s early-liberated, earning money, having the vote, their potential husband probably died in the war, that kind of independence. Flapper gear is very good for eating in, because it’s loose and unrestricted. But as soon as they turn the cameras off they put a bib on you, to stop any food going on your costume. On the set of a TV history programme, there’s people dressed as, say, Tudors, with big plastic sheets over their padded skirts, gowns and bodices.
Bottles of prosecco exploding in our freezer at home – because we’ve put them in to chill, then forgotten they’re there – happens more often than it should do. But it’s just one of the risks of a prosecco lifestyle.
Johnny Depp was filming at Hampton Court and I had a date arranged with him. When I told my boyfriend, now husband, he was pretty furious and slammed the phone down. I would have taken Johnny into Henry’s kitchen and so forth, but he didn’t turn up. So, I went to the party where I’d originally meant to be, and everyone asked: “Aren’t you supposed to be out with Johnny Depp?’ My boyfriend had made capital out of being stood up in favour of Depp.
We hold, in storage, Princess Margaret’s 1960s melamine fitted kitchen [from Kensington Palace]. Curators of the future will be interested in that.
My favourite things
Food
Fresh risotto. If you make it for other people, they’re unduly impressed. People have this idea that risotto is hard to make. Get the knack and it’s super-easy.
Drink
Cocktails, especially in jazz bars. What I thought adult life would be like. I’ve still got this romantic idea that grownups are in a cocktail bar having a whale of a time.
Restaurant
I’ve never found it since, but our family still talks about it – how we stopped somewhere random on the way to Devon and ate the fish and chips of heaven.
Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow by Lucy Worsley, is out now in paperback (Hodder & Stoughton, £10.99). To order a copy for £9.67, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6848
