Glenn Vance

Churchill’s Tastes in Food and Drink

Accord­ing to Georgina Lan­de­mare,¹ the Churchill’s pri­vate cook, the Prime Min­is­ter was a fan French haut cui­sine as well as tra­di­tional Eng­lish dishes like fowl, and roast beef with York­shire pud­ding. He also pre­ferred shell­fish to plain old fish. He liked clear soups more than thick, creamy ones, and inter­est­ingly, he liked Stil­ton² more than sweet desserts, but, accord­ing to Lan­de­mare, he could eas­ily be per­suaded to eat any type of fish or dessert.

When it came to desserts, though, he insisted that they be expres­sive. It may be apoc­ryphal, but it is said that he once demanded of a waiter, “Take away this pud­ding, it has no theme.” There is no record of how the waiter took the “compliment”.

When it came to drink­ing, though, he was very par­tic­u­lar. He was per­sonal friends with Sir Alexan­der Walker, and loved his scotch, Johnny Walker Red. When he drank brandy, he always took a snifter of Hine.³

1. There’s a lit­tle bit of info here about the book that Lan­de­mare wrote here. [↩]
2. I had no idea what Stil­ton was, but thanks to the glo­ri­ous inter­net you can read more about Stil­ton Blue Cheese here. [↩]
3. The info for this post came from the highly infor­ma­tive winstonchurchill.org. [↩]

13. March 2007 by Glenn Vance
Categories: History | Leave a comment