Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that on Monday evening (Australian time) Prince Harry and US actress Meghan Markle announced their engagement.
What you might not know is that Harry popped the question while the couple was busy cooking a roast chook.
And what you might not know about that is that, apparently, roasting a chicken is a time-honoured way to seal the marriage deal.
During their interview on BBC1 earlier this week, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle described how Harry proposed, saying they were enjoying a “cosy night… cooking roast chicken” when the Prince got down on one knee and asked Meghan to marry him. Meghan said yes, as we know - but could her answer have more to do with the chicken than with Harry himself?
I mean, obviously not, but hear me out.
They were enjoying a “cosy night… cooking roast chicken” when the Prince got down on one knee.
“Engagement chicken” is a real thing, with a long history.
In 2004, US magazine Glamour published a recipe for a butter-and-lemon basted roast chook that, supposedly, has led to the engagements of multiple staff members.
The story goes that, way back in 1982, a fashion editor at the magazine gave her roast chicken recipe to a staffer, who made it for her then-boyfriend. Within a month, they were engaged. That assistant passed the recipe onto three more staff members… who all got engaged in quick succession.
The recipe is now such a big part of Glamour’s folklore that it was the hero recipe of a book published by the magazine (100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know: Engagement Chicken and 99 Other Fabulous Dishes to Get You Everything You Want in Life, which, sidenote, seems like a big call for a cookbook) and even made appearances on Martha Stewart and The Barefoot Contessa.
And here’s where it all comes back to Meghan: the actress is apparently a huge fan of one roast chicken recipe in particular… from none other than Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa.
“There is nothing as delicious (or as impressive) as a perfectly roasted chicken. If you have an Ina Garten–level roasted-chicken recipe, it’s a game changer. I bring that to dinner parties and make a lot of friends,” the former Suits star told Good Housekeeping.
So - did a roast chook play a part in the royal engagement?
Look: clucked if we know, but wouldn’t it be fun if it did?
