Tom Parker Bowles reveals how growing up with future Queen Camilla could be ‘incredibly dangerous’

Tom Parker Bowles and his mother Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall attend the second day of the Cheltenham Festival in 2015

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Tom Parker Bowles has been embracing his inner Proust with the release of his latest book, which tells the story of the famous royal family and their favorite foods. And while reflecting on this blue-blooded gastronomy, the lauded food critic has taken the opportunity to recall the breakfasts, lunches and dinners he spent growing up, gathering around the dining room table with his mother, the future Queen Camilla.

“I come from a very relaxed family,” he explained hello‘we all gather around the table. We all like food. We all like a drink. Mealtimes with Camilla and Tom’s father, Andrew Parker Bowles, often featured produce grown at their country home, the 8,000-acre Bolehyde Manor in Wiltshire, where the family lived from 1973 to 1986.

It was, Tom said, a bucolic British upbringing. And while Proust had his muffins, it’s a heartier dish that takes the Queen’s son back to his childhood. Previously, Tom has looked back fondly on the food his mother (who appears to be a great cook) can whip up every day: a classic roast chicken, shepherd’s pie or scrambled eggs breakfast.

When her parents separated in 1995, however, this idyllic pastoral childhood took a more troubled turn after the press noted her mother’s relationship with King Charles, then Prince of Wales. At that moment, Camilla and Tom were thrust sharply into the public eye, attracting the attention of journalists and photographers.

This new connection to royal life quickly became a life-threatening threat to both Tom and his mother, “especially in the bad days, in the mid-nineties,” he explained, “the onslaught of the paparazzi, the screams, and she didn’t. I don’t have a net to protect her. I remember high-speed chases down the M4 that were incredibly dangerous.