In a recent interview, “Great American Baking Show” judge Prue Leith recalled a royal blunder she made with Queen Elizabeth.
Leith, who launched her career by building her own catering company, explained that she was once hired to cater an event attended by the queen.
“So I had to give her a cup of tea,” she said. “And I didn’t know how she wanted it, and the palace wouldn’t tell me … they said, ‘You must give her a choice.’ So I said, ‘Black or white, ma’am?’ And she said, ‘Black, please.’”
Leith said she added some lemon to the cup because she “thought people who have black tea have it with lemon.”
However, after she poured in the tea, the queen apparently said, “No lemon.”
“The thing was already in there,” Leith said, “and I didn’t have a second cup, so I got a cocktail stick and I fished the lemon out … I put it on the tray cloth, and spread this tea stain all over the tray.”
That was bad enough, but things just kept getting worse.
“I topped up her cup with hot water thinking that people who like black tea usually like it quite weak, and she said, ‘I like it strong,’” Leith recalled. “So this poor woman, she wanted strong black tea and she got weak, lemony tea.”
In spite of this mishap, in 2021, the late monarch conferred a great honor upon Leith, making her Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to food, broadcasting and charity.
“It took her 50 years to do it,” Leith quipped.
In the preparation for the coronation of King Charles III taking place May 6, Leith also met with the king’s youngest brother, Prince Edward, to sample the official “Coronation Quiche.”
“There was no soggy bottom, the custard was not overcooked and dry, and the balance of tarragon was perfect — a really good quiche,” she said, according to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper.
