Confession time! While the whole world was buzzing about crowns and coaches during King Charles’s Coronation, let’s be real, one thing really had the internet talking: his fingers! Yes, you read that right. The fascination with the monarch’s digits, affectionately (or maybe not so affectionately?) nicknamed ‘sausage fingers,’ reached peak levels when the eyes of the world were glued to every detail of the historic event.
It’s kind of wild how a physical trait can go so viral, but King Charles’s hands definitely captured the internet’s imagination leading up to and during the Coronation. Searches for ‘what causes sausage fingers’ shot up, and social media was flooded with comments. Some royal fans even felt bad, joking that the King had been ‘bullied’ into hiding his hands in official portraits after the online reaction went wild. Like, one user on Twitter quipped under a picture, ‘Show us his hands, cowards!’ 😂 Another added, ‘I can’t believe Twitter has bullied the literal king into never showing his hands.’ The internet is truly a force of nature!
But here’s the really juicy part – King Charles himself is totally in on the joke! A new BBC documentary takes us behind the scenes of the Coronation year, and there’s this absolutely priceless moment during rehearsals at Westminster Abbey. As Prince William is grappling with a tricky clasp on a ceremonial robe, he jokes to his dad, “On the day, it’s not going to go in, is it?” And the King, with a giggle, retorts, “No, you haven’t got sausage fingers like mine!” How amazing is that? Seeing that playful banter between father and son, even about something the internet has obsessed over, just adds a whole new layer.
This isn’t a new thing, by the way. The ‘sausage fingers’ have apparently been a topic of conversation within the royal family for decades! His late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, even wrote about his hands when he was just a baby. In a letter to her music teacher, she described them as “rather large, but with fine long fingers quite unlike mine and certainly unlike his father’s. It will be interesting to see what they become.” Talk about a historical prediction!
Fast forward to King Charles becoming a dad himself, and guess what? He noticed the same trait in his own firstborn! After Prince William was born, Charles wrote to a friend, saying, “I can’t tell you how excited and proud I am… He really does look surprisingly appealing and has sausage fingers just like mine.” It seems like this characteristic is a royal legacy!
The fascination even spilled over into real-world fun. Around the time of the Coronation, a cheeky butcher in New Zealand decided to sell actual ‘King Charles Sausage Fingers’ – which were just regular sausages, but hey, clever marketing! And one royal fan even made a whole themed creation with bangers and tomato buttons to celebrate the big day. It just goes to show how a pop culture moment, even one based on someone’s hands, can inspire all sorts of creativity.
Doctors have weighed in too, offering potential reasons for swelling, like oedema (fluid retention, sometimes after long flights or in hot weather) or arthritis, which is common in older age. But honestly, for most of us online, it’s just become this quirky, memorable detail associated with the King. From Queen Elizabeth noting his baby hands to Charles joking with William during Coronation rehearsals, the story of the royal digits is surprisingly entertaining!
Recipe details: Peppery Sausage Fingers
Cook time: Unknown Total time: 45
Level: Unknown Servings: 8
Total weight: 859.4 g Calories: 2966.1 kcal
Energy: 2966.1 kcal Protein: 101.2 g
Carbs: 133.2 g Fat: 224.1 g
Dish Tags: british, bread, lunch/dinner, Low-Carb, Sugar-Conscious, Low Potassium, Peanut-Free, Tree-Nut-Free, Soy-Free, Sulfites
Ingredients:
1 sheet frozen puff pastry (half a 17-ounce package), thawed
All-purpose flour, for dusting
8 links fully cooked Italian chicken sausage (such as asiago-red pepper flavor)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup finely grated asiago cheese
Coarsely ground pepper
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
1 small clove garlic, grated
Kosher salt
Get the recipe: Peppery Sausage Fingers
Recipe details: Ploughman’s Sandwich
Cook time: Unknown Total time: 10
Level: Unknown Servings: 1
Total weight: 444.7 g Calories: 550.2 kcal
Energy: 550.2 kcal Protein: 34.6 g
Carbs: 42.4 g Fat: 27.6 g
Dish Tags: mediterranean, sandwiches, lunch/dinner, High-Fiber, Egg-Free, Peanut-Free, Tree-Nut-Free, Soy-Free, Fish-Free, Sulfites
Ingredients:
2 slices crusty bread
1 teaspoon butter, softened
handful of arugula
2 sweet gherkin pickles, sliced
3 slices smoked ham
2 slices white cheddar cheese
1 small tomato, sliced
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
Get the recipe: Ploughman’s Sandwich
So while there might be serious stuff happening in the world (like, totally unrelated, but did you hear about that sandwich recall? Yikes!), it’s kind of fascinating how a simple, self-described physical trait can become such a widely shared, lighthearted moment during something as grand as a coronation. It just proves that sometimes, the most unexpected details are the ones we can’t stop talking about!
Related posts:
Urgent warning over sandwiches that could cause ‘vomiting’ in food safety recall
How King Charles’ ‘sausage fingers’ have evolved from ‘rather large’ as a child to royally puffy digits – after monarch mocked them himself
King Charles joking with William about his ‘sausage fingers’ caught on camera
