The Real Reason Food With A Pointed End Is Never Served To The Monarch

Queen Elizabeth II cultivated an air of mystery regarding the royal family's private affairs, as the Daily Beast notes. But as modern culture has made that intrigue increasingly challenging to maintain, we've all come to learn some juicy tidbits about how the royal family lives. One thing that is readily apparent is that life in the royal family involves a truly remarkable number of rules. The dining rules alone could fill volumes. And do consider that those are just the rules that we know of, presumably because the queen allowed us to know them. 

With the queen gone, the question arises whether His Majesty King Charles III will keep these rules in effect. With tradition so fundamental to the monarchy, you'd imagine that Charles would err on that side. On the other hand, "Leaky Pen-gate" suggests the king is already bringing his own personality to bear in his reign (via Page Six). Moreover, even as Prince of Wales, Charles was calling some of the shots in the kitchen (e.g., no fois gras allowed ever; too cruel). 

Since Charles is a known foodie, according to Express, with strong opinions he seems willing to share (or have shared on his behalf, in the case of the contents of King Charles' "breakfast box"), perhaps he'll let some of the queen's banned foods come back. But one tradition we think will be harder to dispense with is the one about no pointy foods. 

In the 2019 documentary "Secrets of the Royal Kitchen," former royal family chef Graham Newbould revealed some of the more idiosyncratic preparations that cooking for the royals required. For example, one must never serve anything with seeds to the royal family. That's why, as Newbould demonstrated in the video, when preparing the dainty cucumber sandwiches that the queen adored at teatime (via Hello!), he removed every last seed before rendering the cucumbers into paper-thin ribbons to be stacked on paper-thin slices of white bread. 

The final step in preparing the sandwiches was to cut the corners off the bread, which Newbould said is a steadfast rule that must be followed whenever sandwiches are prepared for the royal family. As it turns out, this is not just a Queen Elizabeth thing. As Newbould explained, "The royals never have square sandwiches because tradition has it that anyone presenting them with pointed-edged food is trying to overthrow the throne of England." According to Newbould, this practice goes back a very long time, but thus far, we haven't been able to unearth the rule's origins. We'll just take him at his word as we wait to see whether King Charles keeps it in effect.