The ‘obsession’ King Charles shares with Camilla: Queen’s son Tom Parker Bowles says couple are ‘deeply competitive’ over hobby

King Charles is a keen champion for the environment, wildlife and the outdoors.

And he has long been known to be a fan of picking mushrooms; a hobby he pursued on the day that his mother Queen Elizabeth II passed away. 

Now, Queen Camilla‘s son, food writer Tom Parker Bowles, has revealed that his mother also enjoys foraging for mushrooms, and that she and the King are ‘deeply competitive about their hauls’.

Writing in his new book, Cooking and the Crown: Royal Recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III, Tom said that wild mushrooms are ‘somewhat of an obsession’ for both the monarch and his mother. 

Charles walking looking for mushrooms near his Birkhall home in Scotland in 2011

Camilla enjoying the outdoors during a walk around Loch Muick at Balmoral in aid of the National Osteoporosis Society in 2010

He gave the insight into the King and Queen’s passion for food in the introduction to a mushroom and pasta recipe.  

Charles turned to his hobby the day his mother passed away on September 8, 2022. 

As the Queen’s health dramatically declined that day, he spent an hour at her bedside at Balmoral and then went to nearby Birkhall to gather mushrooms alone.

It was while he was returning to Balmoral by car that he received a phone call telling him that Queen Elizabeth had died.  

Charles’s interest in mushrooms seems to go back decades, however. 

Armed with a wicker basket and walking stick, Charles embarked on a mushroom foraging trip alone in August 2011.

He walked for miles at Loch Muick, near his Birkhall home, while the rest of his family went grouse shooting. 

Charles, then the Prince of Wales, smelling a mushroom during a visit to Afan Forest in Japan in 2008

Charles smelling a large mushroom during his visit to the Enmei tea factory in Japan in 2008

The then Prince of Wales examining a mushroom near Loch Muick in 2011

Tom Parker Bowles, Queen Camilla’s son, is a food writer and critic. His new book, Cooking and the Crown: Royal recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III, is out now

The then Prince of Wales foraged Chanterelles and would occasionally stop to stoop down and cut one of the yellow mushrooms.  

A group of walkers passed by the royal, but he was so consumed in his activity that he didn’t appear to notice them. 

Camilla has also ventured outdoors alone in the search for fungi to forage.

In 2007, while Charles prepared for a service in memory of Princess Diana, Camilla took a trip to Balmoral.

She was spotted picking mushrooms, accompanied by a royal protection officer, and wore a green coat, jumper and trousers.    

Charles has explored his hobby during official engagements too.

During his royal tour of the Far East with Camilla in 2008, he visited a Japanese forest.

He explored the Afan woodland with Japanese writer C. W. Nicol and Princess Takamado and was photographed smelling a large mushroom from the area. 

Charles leaning against an ancient oak tree in Windsor Great Park in 2022

He also met Japanese farmers at the Enmei tea factory and made sure to stop and smell a mushroom there too. 

In 1992, The Daily Mail wrote how Charles had developed a taste for foraged finds.

Italian chef Antonia Carluccios said at the time: ‘The Prince is very knowledgeable about mushrooms.’

The chef had been foraging in woodland nearby Balmoral and added: ‘I don’t wish to say any more than that I have been assisting the Prince’s chef identify mushrooms for private use.’