Queen's son issues update on King Charles' cancer treatment
Tom Parker-Bowles has issued an update on King Charles' cancer treatment. Queen Camilla's son revealed how his family had been coping since news of Charles' cancer diagnosis.
Buckingham Palace has not confirmed what cancer Charles has but said it was not prostate cancer. Mr Parker-Bowles - who is Camilla's eldest child - said King Charles' 'treatment is going well'.
He also said his mother was 'tough'. The food critic and writer made his comments as he spoke about the history of royal dining - and Queen Camilla's cooking.
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Mr Parker Bowles confirmed Charles' 'doctor says the treatment is going well'. He also shared that Camilla was coping and said: "She's tough, my mother".
He also shed light into the Royal Family's meal times, saying the King 'appals waste'. The 49-year-old said: "There is no waste, everything is recycled, everything is used from the table.
"If anything is leftover from the dinner, that will be made into something else or appear the next day. Nothing's allowed to be thrown out."
The King has long been a champion of sustainability - The Coronation Food Project co-ordinated by his charitable fund launched last year, aiming to reduce food waste and support people living in 'food insecurity'. Mr Parker-Bowles said: "It's not the King just paying lip service, he practices what he preaches."
As stepson and godson, he said food sustainability was a subject he 'can relate to' Charles on. He added: "He really is a food hero. To talk to him about the strange varieties of plums or pears or anything else is endlessly fascinating".
His latest cookbook 'Cooking and the Crown' details the history of food within the Royal Family - from the reign of Queen Victoria beginning in 1837 and Edward VII at the turn of the century, to Charles and Camilla. Mr Parker-Bowles - who regularly appears as a critic on BBC One's MasterChef - said: "They can certainly eat, that family!
"In the old days, they were the very pinnacle of society and what was known about them, I suppose, was pretty controlled. So it wasn't just what they ate [that the public were fascinated by] it was what they wore, who they saw, what they read, if the King and Queen were doing this, it meant it was something perhaps worth doing."
Lunch and dinner in Queen Victoria's time would be ten to 12 courses, he said. Mr Parker-Bowles said: "They didn't have to eat it all but there was just a huge amount of food and they did eat a lot more than we do now."
But 'tastes have changed', Mr Parker-Bowles said. Cooking And The Crown by Tom Parker Bowles, published in hardback by Aster, is priced £30 and available September 26.