From The Storyteller Essays by Walter Benjamin, Edited by Samuel Titan, Translated by Tess Lewis (2019).

I recount this old tale for those who would like to try figs or Falernian wine, borscht or a peasant lunch on Capri. There once was a king who had all the power and treasures of the world at his command, but who was nonetheless unhappy and became more melancholy with each passing year. One day he summoned his personal cook and said to him: “You have served me faithfully for many a year and filled my table with the most magnificent dishes. I am well-disposed toward you. Now, however, I would like to put your art to a final test. You must make me a mulberry omelet such as I enjoyed fifty years ago in my earliest childhood. My father, at the time, was waging war against his evil neighbor to the east. He conquered us and we had to escape. And so we fled day and night, my father and I, until we reached a dark wood. We wandered through it and were on the brink of perishing from hunger and exhaustion when we stumbled on a little hut. In it lived an old woman who most warmly bid us rest and set to work at the stove. It wasn’t long before the mulberry omelet appeared before us. The moment I took the first bite, I felt a wonderful sense of consolation and my heart swelled with hope. I was a mere child then and I did not think of the relief this delicious food provided. But when I later had the woman searched for throughout my entire realm, neither she nor anyone able to prepare a mulberry omelet could be found. If you can grant me this last wish, I will make you my son-in-law and heir to my throne. But if you cannot satisfy me, you must die.” The cook replied: “Your majesty, you must then summon the hangman at once. I know well the secret of the mulberry omelet and all its ingredients, from the common cress to the noble thyme. I know well the spell one must say as one stirs and how the boxwood whisk must always be turned towards the right lest our labor be rewarded only with trouble. But nevertheless, oh King, I must die. Nevertheless my omelet will not satisfy you. For how shall I season it with all that you savored at the time: the danger of battle and the alertness of the pursued, the warmth of the hearth, and the sweetness of rest, the foreign present, and the dark future?” Thus spoke the cook. The king remained silent for a time and not long after, he released the cook from his duty richly rewarded. (1930)