The Fancy Sandwich Queen Elizabeth Only Ate On Special Occasions

Considering Queen Elizabeth II's record-long tenure on the British throne, it's no surprise that there's a ton of information out there about the food most associated with the late monarch. If you do a bit of digging, you can find knowledge relating to the queen's favorite cocktail, and even the fact that the British royal family technically owns a McDonald's location. But when Elizabeth II was feeling particularly indulgent, there's supposedly one thing that suited her palate better than anything else.

Elizabeth II may have been the British queen, but it turns out that nothing satisfied quite like the quintessential French croque monsieur. A cheesy and decadent sandwich, the croque monsieur (not to be confused with the croque madame) stacks ham and gruyere, usually on French bread. Once you top it off with some béchamel sauce and cheese, and let it broil until it becomes nice and crunchy, that croque monsieur becomes a textural and flavorful wonder that's evidently fit for a queen. Of course, you wouldn't want one of these every day — for that, the queen preferred a sweeter kind of sandwich, jam pennies. But for a royal lunch when the need for something more fancy struck, the croque monsieur was her go-to.

The croque monsieur may taste glorious, and it was clearly good enough for the queen herself, but when you break it down, there's nothing incredibly fancy about the sandwich. You'd even be forgiven for writing off this sandwich as little more than a dressed up ham and cheese sandwich, and while you wouldn't be that far off, it would definitely be selling this sandwich very short. The fact is, this is no simple ham and cheese sandwich.

Croque monsieurs are a French cafe staple, and are one of the essential French sandwiches you need to know. But what makes them so special isn't the fact that a croque monsieur comes from across the channel or that it uses any particularly fancy ingredients –- rather, it's more so the combination of ingredients that equates to more than the sum of its parts. The rich gruyere cheese, creamy and buttery béchamel, and that satisfying crunchy texture doesn't take a whole lot more effort, but it adds a great deal to your experience. In fact, it adds so much that Elizabeth II considered it a favorite, and you may well find that too.