A Touch of Chocolate

A Touch of Chocolate

King Milton was well versed in Greek mythology. So when he was fortunate enough to save the satyr, Silenus, from another drunken binge and captivity, he knew that on the return of Silenus to the god Dionysus, he would be given a reward of anything he wanted.

Milton did not want to incur the mishap that had befallen the greedy King Midas under the same circumstance. So Milton had to think carefully as to what his wish should be. 

King Milton was not a greedy man. While others dreamt of riches, adventures, and sexual exploits. King Milton was satisfied with his existence as it was. All he had to do was command something to be done and it would be done. Such was his power, and he never misused it.

He was a kind and compassionate human being. Unlike Midas, he was not enamored of gold and its acquisition. What wealth Milton gained was always shared with the people that he ruled over. For that reason alone, he was cherished by all the inhabitants of the kingdom. That was not to say that Milton did not have wants and desires. 

If King Milton had one weakness it would be chocolate. For he loved the taste of it; he loved the touch of it. Deep dark chocolate made his mouth water. Though not as strong as dark, milk chocolate cleansed his palate whenever he needed to soothe a bitter taste of something he had consumed. White chocolate…well, he didn’t consider “white chocolate” chocolate at all, so he rarely ate any, unless it was part of some confection that included other real chocolates (dark, bittersweet, semi-sweet, milk).  As for beverages he loved his chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream sodas. You get the idea.

If he was to make a wish, you can be sure that somehow it would be connected to chocolate. Perhaps he would choose a Chocolate touch? To be able to touch something and turn it into chocolate would be ideal. But then he remembered the mishap of King Midas. 

Having wished to turn everything into gold at his touch, King Midas found that he couldn’t eat anything anymore. Every utensil, food, or liquid he made contact with turned to gold. Gold is not something one wants to eat nor drink. In some versions of the Midas story, Midas turns his only daughter into gold. Though King Milton considered his daughter as precious as Midas must have thought about Midas’s own daughter, turning King Milton’s daughter into chocolate just wasn’t in the cards. 

So when you’re not sure what to wish for, you go to your faithful counselors and ask their advice. In this case, his most faithful and loved advisors were his wife, the queen, and daughter, the princess. It also helped that both of them had a longing for chocolate too. 

They talked together all through the night, and by morning the queen and princess came up with a plan. 

The first part of the plan was to build or purchase a small bakery shop in the village devoted to baking chocolate confections. The next part involved hiring the most accomplished bakers in the kingdom to work in the bakery. At no time were any of the people hired to know that it was the King and Queen behind the running of this shop. Stocking the shop with the finest chocolates and ingredients was simple; the king certainly had the funds. Other than the king, queen, and princess, only the master of the royal treasury would know the specifics of this shop and be in charge of distributing all of the funds needed. The third part was the creation of the book. This tome would contain only blank pages, a lot of them. The final part was up to the king and his wish.

And so it happened. Once Silenus was sobered up and healed. He was allowed to return to his god Dionysus. After Silenus shared the story of his capture and return to the god, Dionysus visited King Milton and as the story goes, offered the king anything he wished for. The king’s wish was for a Chocolate touch. But there were conditions for this touch. It wasn’t that anything he touched would turn to chocolate, but any blank page in his book that he touched would fill the page with a recipe for a chocolate delight never heard of before, that could be made from available ingredients. And the wish was granted. 

All the king had to do was touch an empty page in his book, a new recipe would appear, the princess in disguise would share the recipe with the bakers and a new chocolate confection was created. 

The king’s bakery was a big success, to the delight of the king, his family, and the entire kingdom. Of course, no one ever knew who the real owner of the bakery was, for it wasn’t called king’s bakery. The idea for the bakery came from the Queen. Though the idea was hers, she did have help from the princess. They decided to put the two words together to name the bakery and no one was the wiser. It was to be called Hershey’s Chocolatier. A private joke of the king and his family.

When the book was filled with recipes, the king’s chocolate touch powers ended. After the deaths of the king, the queen, and the princess, the funding for the bakery ceased and over time the bakery closed down. As to the book, no one has ever been able to find it, or so they say. I find it very interesting that in 1894, a person by the name of Milton Hershey began selling Hershey’s chocolate bars and founded a major chocolate company that still stands to this day. I leave it to you to connect the dots.