He gave up the throne of England for her, but could she cook?
The answer about one ingredient in the romance between England's Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson is "no" and the proof is in the high cholesterol puddings.An unpublished cookbook by the Duchess of Windsor proves conclusively that she didn't know beans about cooking. The book goes on sale at Sotheby's here Friday, providing a rare chance for someone to get their hands on recipes that avoid garlic, onions and common sense.
"She could have clogged a lot of arteries with these recipes. She seemed to have a fondness for mixing cream, butter and mayonnaise," says Sotheby's Marsha Malinowski, who calls the 36-page typescript a delight.
The duchess wrote the cookbook in New York in 1958 for a U.S. newspaper Sunday supplement but never published it. She married the duke after he gave up the throne in 1936, and the city served as one of their exile homes.
The book, expected to fetch about $8,000, gives a glimpse into the sanctum of one of the world's most famous couples, showing that as far as food goes the royal exiles liked to meddle in the kitchen but left the hard work to others.
Take, for example, the recipe for stuffed grapes. Someone, presumably not the duchess, was instructed to peel them, slice them in half, smear them with a mixture of guyere cheese, milk, cream and salt and push them back together before placing on a silver tray and handing out to guests as canapes.
To the disgust of her French chef, the duchess loved frozen and canned food. Or as she wrote: "In our household I have waged a long fight in behalf of frozen foods. When I used to suggest to our cook that he make more use of our freezer, he would protest `Why, Madame? I have only to walk six blocks to get something fresh."'
That was not the only battle between chef and Madame. She wrote that the chef, Lucien, would go into fits whenever she would have some ladies over for luncheon.
"Our cook is less help when I plan a ladies lunch than at any other time. When I say `Lucien, I am having five ladies for lunch on Thursday,' I am answered with a shrug of his shoulders which makes it clear that the very idea is impossible," she wrote.
The problem for poor Lucien was simple: Ladies are always dieting. But the duchess had a solution. "I promise even if it is rich, if you make it not look rich, they will eat it."
Lucien would shrug his shoulders and say, "If this dieting goes on, Madame, there will be no more French kitchens."
The duchess's idea of good food was to take a Camembert cheese, cut off its crust, soak it in white wine for a day and then mix it in butter.
She also liked something called Sauce Liberal, which was mayonnaise mixed with tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and cream to which was added "a good quantity of gin."
The cookbook, including handwritten notes, is being sold by an anonymous collector, presumably one who can no longer stomach the dangers of a high cholesterol diet.