Edinburgh at table? This week, Taste takes you behind the scenes at Government House, the Bermuda College, Stonington Beach and the Southampton Princess Hotels for an in-depth look at preparations for the royal menus.

Bermuda's Miss Manners, Government protocol officer Mrs. Joan Williams, provides guidelines on matters of protocol, while our reporter's diary reveals Taste-y tidbits that don't make headlines. A right Royal repast is what a battery of chefs and kitchen staff in three of Bermuda's major kitchens are working feverishly to set before the Queen and Prince Philip next week.

In the case of the Bermuda College student chefs, however, while the repast will be most royal -- every dish has a regal connection -- not one morsel will actually cross the sovereign's lips, for she is only to see their creation during an inspection tour of the trainee kitchen.

But that's okay by chef instructor Mr. Fred Ming and his students.

"I think it is quite an honour to cook for her,'' Wayne Parfitt said. Indeed, the trainee chefs are unanimously pleased that their sovereign will include them in her busy schedule, and will take the same meticulous care in preparing the showcase dishes as if she was actually eating them.

"We're psyched,'' Cory Powell confirmed.

Only one student admitted to being "a little nervous'', but jokes from her colleagues about asking the Queen to secure a recording contract for her soon wiped the jitters from young Zahra Jabbar's mind.

For Mr. Ming, nerves don't come into it. Like any true professional, he views the royals as two more guests in a milieu where all guests are Very Important People.

"I cooked for the Queen when I worked at the Savoy Hotel in London, and I met Princess Margaret when we did the luncheon at Camden, so I am quite used to royals,'' he said. "If you know what you're doing, and you do it well, there is no problem.'' It was a sentiment echoed by all the chefs, though the looks in some eyes were deceiving.

At the Stonington Beach Hotel, executive chef Gerard Van Der Meer -- who is no stranger to royalty himself, having twice cooked for the queen of his native Holland -- is already gearing up for the luncheon which will stretch the hotel's dining room seating to capacity.

Assisting him will be sous chef Otto Kummer, chefs Josef Schonauer, Uwe Braun and Frances Kelleher who will prepare the luncheon for 120 guests, which must be served in one hour flat.

"This is a team effort from start to finish,'' he stressed, "and I am very proud of everyone who is contributing to it.'' On the face of it, all the menus appear to be very simple -- iced tomato soup, medallions of beef stuffed with Stilton cheese, pears poached in port, for example -- but as the chefs pointed out, that is because they were asked to keep the wording simple.

What really counts is what's behind the prose.

In creating any dish, four things come into play: colour, texture, structure and presentation; and behind those is another key ingredient: meticulous planning. Preparations for the Speaker's dinner, for example, began in November.

For everyone involved, there are endless lists to be made, supplies to be ordered, accoutrements to be fine-tuned, and "battle plans'' to be rehearsed.

Stonington Beach Hotel, for example, will borrow some equipment from another hotel. It has also purchased new white table cloths and napkins.

The suite of rooms to which the Royal party will retire to freshen up before lunch is being completely rearranged and will include a drinks tray with specifically requested spirits.

At the Southampton Princess, the Queen's table will be draped in a specially-ordered white tablecloth measuring 6 feet wide and 60 feet long, which will have precisely Frenched corners.

Special arrangements for its laundering include a long pole over which to drape it on its journey from the laundry to the dining room to minimise wrinkling. And when it does arrive at its destination, the cloth will be re-ironed on the table to make sure it is absolutely perfect.

At Government House, where the main dining table normally seats 24, 28 will be accommodated, with the remaining 30 guests seated in the adjoining verandah.

The Bermuda College-trained, Bermudian butler, Mr. Andre m Nisbett, will oversee the setting of the tables, a process he estimates will take two hours to complete.

Because the dining table is so highly polished, round, white, embroidered linen placemats will be used instead of a tablecloth. Four crystal glasses will be at each place setting, while the cutlery will be finest English sterling silver.

"I've polished it all already, so when the table is laid my assistants will all wear gloves so we don't have to polish it again,'' Mr. Nisbett noted.

Out of the vaults, too, will come all the State silver serving pieces.

Using a long piece of string tied at both ends of the table, the butler's crew will line up everything so perfectly that when he stands at one end and looks to the other, all like items will seem as one.

Interspersed with the fresh flower arrangements created by the Bermuda Garden Club will be five candelabra, loaned by a loyal citizen.

In the end it will add up to splendid spectacle, and give no indication of what Mr. Nisbett and his helpers went through to make it so.

"Because the dining room is being used for the investiture on Tuesday afternoon we must remove and store the table. Only after it is over, can we bring everything again and set it all up for the dinner on Wednesday night,'' he explained.

Time allowed for the actual meal is one and three-quarter hours, followed by coffee in the drawing room, and then a mini Beat Retreat ceremony outside.

"By the time that is over, we will have restored the dining room to perfect order,'' Mr. Nisbett noted.

At the Southampton Princess, preparations in the vast Atlantic Room will be equally meticulous.

The table configuration will be what Catering Director Mr. Brian Flanagan calls "banquet style'', the Queen's table across the top of the room, with five tables of 110 seats each running the full length of the room.

Each of the 2,200 wine glasses (there are four per place setting) and 550 champagne reception glasses will be washed, individually hand polished and inspected for flaws.

Measurements between each item per place setting, and the distance between the settings, will be precisely the same, right down to the last centimetre.

Adding to the glory of the three big Atlantic Room crystal chandeliers will be hundreds of candles in special candelabra reputed to have a royal connection.

Approximately 2,000 peach-coloured roses will be used in the table arrangements alone.

In the kitchen, an 85-strong brigade will help executive chef Mr. Thomas Kovacs prepare and serve the four-course dinner as well as the 1,500-1,800 canapes for the pre-dinner champagne reception. Plated food will be kept hot in nearby heated trolleys, as it will at Stonington.

Ninety minutes have been allotted for the Speaker's dinner, so service for the 550 guests will be streamlined but spectacular.

Food will be served plated by 80 white-gloved waiters who will enter the room in long lines and stand behind each chair. Seconds after the Queen's butler sets her portion on the table, the other waiters will immediately and simultaneously serve their guests. The process will be repeated until all guests are served, women first, men second. The Queen will have her own private butler, Bermudian Mr. Egbert Simons, who is assistant banquet maitre d' at the hotel, standing behind her chair throughout the evening.

When the port is served, the Speaker's glass will be filled last, a signal to all that it is time for the Loyal Toast.

Casting a watchful eye over the dining room proceedings will be Ms Clare Mello, the hotel's convention service manager, whose job it is to see that all runs smoothly.

Indeed, this time around, Bermudians will be highly visible everywhere.

At Stonington Beach Hotel, the waiters will all be Bermuda College graduates, while at Government House the all-Bermudian waiting team will be borrowed from the Bermuda Regiment and the Southampton Princess Hotel. The Queen, however, will be attended by her own footman from Buckingham Palace.

Everywhere, because her left hand is in plaster following a riding accident, all of the Queen's food must be subtly pre-cut into bite-size pieces. When it is served it will look like all the other plates but will be easier to handle with just a fork or spoon.

Service at the Government House dinner will differ from the other locations.

"We don't do silver service,'' Mr. Nisbett explained. "We will present the food on silver platters from which the guests will serve themselves. The ratio is one platter to three guests because the time limit is one and three-quarter hours and everything must run like clockwork.'' Behind the scenes, chef Fox will be assisted by his replacement, Mr. Jeff Patterson, and a temporary chef, as well as Bermudian kitchen assistant Mrs.

Karen Baker, who has been performing similar duties for the past nine or 10 years.

But what of the actual food itself? How does the process work? Naturally, Bermuda wants to put its best culinary foot forward for its most distinguished visitors, so nothing is being left to chance.

Even before the menus were finalised, consideration was taken of local weather conditions vis-a-vis fresh produce and the fact that we are an island.

At Government House Mr. Fox, in drawing up his proposed menus (each location had to submit three proposals to Buckingham Palace, which chose the final version), thought he had it right when looking over the flourishing kitchen garden. But as it happens, Mother Nature has not behaved well, so some of the required vegetables are being imported.

And of course the word "imported'' is fraught with dangers due to the vagaries of air freight at this time of the year.

Thus, the Southampton Princess has double-ordered every single ingredient it requires. One lot will come by ship, the other by air, so if one fails the other succeeds.

Chef Fox has a special, but more economical arrangement with his importers. If his requested supplies do not materialise, he will be notified immediately and then make the best of what is available.

"Getting a raw product and turning it into something attractive is what a being a chef is all about,'' he said. "At the end of the day we'll manage no matter what. We have to, there's no choice.'' But then, Mr. Fox is used to improvising because, unlike his colleagues in the hotels, he works in a kitchen with limited space and equipment.

Meanwhile, larders are filling with advance supplies, and rehearsals are taking place at every level, from where to put the mushrooms on a plate to traffic flow in and out of the busy kitchens.

Everything has been walked through and practised. In some cases, rooms have even been tested for capacity to make sure that the number of people destined to occupy them will fit in comfortably.

Sample meals have been prepared, arranged and re-arranged on plates until they look just right.

Many ingredients have been special-ordered for reasons you wouldn't normally think of. For example, chef Van Der Meer will be using Dutch veal filets because he needs the extra width to stuff the centres with lobster tails.

"Americans cut the filets in half at the hip joint so they are too small to make filled medallions with,'' he explained.

Logistics and strict schedules decree that time must be tightly and efficiently controlled. Yet aesthetics cannot be sacrificed. What can be prepared ahead of time will be, so long as it doesn't compromise freshness.

Where meals are served plated (that is, already arranged on the plate), each course must be arranged in a different shape to sustain interest and eye-appeal. Yes, and even plate shapes and sizes are important in the equation.

For example, perhaps in witty reference to the mythical Bermuda triangle, the first course at Stonington Beach Hotel and the Southampton Princess will be a triangular arrangement, while main courses will be round.

The sauce on the Speaker's dinner dessert will be precisely triangular, while the two tiny ladyfingers will be daintily crossed, perhaps in imitation of the organisers' fingers! GETTING IT RIGHT -- Students, from left, Zahra Jabbar, Wayne Parfitt, Steve Rose, Cory Powell and Dearean Parris, with chef instructor Mr. Fred Ming, go over a dish to be prepared during the Queen's visit.

PRINCESS PHOTOCALL -- Pictured are some of the 85-strong brigade who are helping Southampton Princess executive chef Mr. Thomas Kovacs,left, with the Speaker's Dinner. A total of 550 guests will join the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh at the event.