I’m the King but it’s Chess.

Dessert was ready, and I called a cook to bring the injured maid some ice.

The cook had some ready, which was surprising.

The queen sat at the edge of the table, and invited many of the cooks in to eat with us.

Before each seat…

Oh no….

A little glass goblet with a white creamy substance inside.

“Did you try to make…” I began.

“Liquid cake!” the queen announced, I want honest opinions from everyone!

She was trying to make icecream if it wasn’t clear.

I politely took my seat at the head of the table.

“You and I taste last, I want to observe each cook and servant as they try this delicacy of realms abroad! Tis of Cream of milk, and sugar and of ice, spun together they sound so nice! Drink up drink up! But one at a time, I need to see your face as you do!” The queen ordered the cook across from her.

And they drank, easy murmurs and chuckles echoed through the quiet dining hall as one cook after another took the odd drink they had prepared with a poker face.

The maids themselves, Bunhead and Frizz also tried.

I was observing my own glass, sugar on the glass as if it was a mixed alchoolic drink. The crystal of the goblet obscured what was happening in the mixture, but I had a distinct feeling of dread that a layer of fatty cream was separating out as the icy slush in the goblet melted.

“Sticky” said Frizz.

The room chuckled.

“Silence!” The voice of the queen rang. It was the queens turn and she wanted everyone to pay attention to her as she tried the concoction.

“Any other comments to prepare your delicate Queen Dove for this alien beverage!” She announced.

“It’s very dense, the ice and sugar help lighten it!” an elderly cook proclaimed.

“Anyone else?”

There was silence, after all the Queen had ordered silence.

The queen, unopposed by any warnings or fears, drank her cup.

“Very satisfying.” She proclaimed,

Which I guess is a polite way to say that it was very dense and overly fatty.

“Now our Lion!” She prompted.

I looked at the odd drink. No doubt this was a misremembered recipe I had once proposed, that my queen had ordered the cooks to try to replicate. Why?

Did that body of hers remember and crave the industrial precursor to ice-cream that I had made?

That warm, still emulsified milkshake that needed to be rigorously stirred and chilled at the same time to produce the pleasing cream that made ice-cream and milkshakes so valued.

That warm mix that was, when mixed properly with milk, not unpleasant, if you drank it right away.

But we in the dark ages of rationality didn’t have machine mixers or refrigerators, so at best we made a fatty snow-cone.

Dare I curse… yes dare I curse these people with this odd beverage the queen had misremembered? Dare I enlighten them?

Perhaps I should try the dessert first.

I lifted it to my lips and drank the little crystal goblet full of ‘liquid cake’, aware that everyone in the room was watching me.

The cooks had done their best, they had gone a little heavy on the vanilla, and actually added a little buttermilk to make the drink a more memorable and bitter endeavor. Perhaps they had substituted it for heavy cream. The sugar was added more as a spice, perhaps I tasted a hint of pepper. The ice didn’t help, for it made the drink unevenly viscous.

My poor kitchen, making something gross and humoring the queen.

Maybe I shouldn’t say gross, cooking was an adventure, without experimentation nothing new or unique or good would be made.

I put the glass down, I think the most polite thing to say would be…

“O Dove of My heart.”

“Yes?” The queen asked.

“Where did you get the recipe?”

I had expected a chuckle from the cooks. But the room was deathly silent.

“From memory. Do you remember it differently?” The Dove countered patiently and cleanly.

“I would say so.”

“What was it that you remember O lion?” The Dove responded.

I was stuck, If the cooks didn’t know already, I was going to ram it down their throats. Emulsification… emulsification… emulsification…

and chemistry would march forward in this world.

We were only a moment away from chlorine gas and bomb throwing anarchists, and thermobaric grain silos.

My foolish foolish queen didn’t know what deadly game we were playing by making a simple ice-cream.

I would explain it publicly.

“This drink made today is something completely new and unknown. I know of no people or nation to drink it.”

The room stayed silent. Which I found depressing. But I continued nevertheless.

“The people of distant lands take great care when making this labor intensive dish.” I began. “It is equal parts heavy cream and milk, heated and sugar stirred in until some falls to the bottom unable to dissolve. At this point it is poured away and mixed with milk and traces of the extract of vanilla to taste. Did anyone remember or write that down a few days ago?”

Silence in the dining hall again.

“I thought I had remembered properly.” Said the queen. Very graciously taking the blame she could have easily used to punish her least favorite cook.

It probably did well to keep the cooks happy.

“Where does the ice in this recipe enter?” An elderly cook asked.

“Yes, why ice?” The queen confirmed.

“To preserve the unstable and fatty mixture without letting it become… Sticky.”

Finally some chuckles, sticky was a funny word.

“The mixture is stirred painstakingly as it is chilled below the temperature at which water freezes.”

“Does not the mixture freeze?” A cook asked.

“It is painstakingly stirred, so that when it does the frozen crystals of water form, they are broken to a delicate and soft texture that takes more to the milk than to the ice.”

“What else?” The queen asked.

“That’s it!”

“I suppose it requires a wizard or season to make, as chilling and mixing at the same time must only be possible in the most ephemeral of circumstances!” The old cook announced.

Oh thank goodness he had said such a thing. I was worried that these people would ask me where I had learned of the magic box of refrigeration. Or worse, the magic of salt and peter and pressure. The heat exchanger was perhaps safe from being unlocked in this realm.

“Indeed, it is a delicacy of the utmost rarity and difficulty to make, despite the deceptive simplicity of the dish I think our proximity to mountains may permit us to enjoy such a thing someday.”

Better for the kingdom to learn of wholesome competitive advantage and craft than of cold technological domination.

“Today we learn something new!” The queen proclaimed. “Liquid Cake? It sounds more as ‘Frozen cake!’ Does my Lion forgive his foolish dove for the mixup?”

“Of course!”

“And shall we have a glass of wine to cleanse the palate?” She asked the cooks.

The room descended into informality as the cooks and servants began to chatter and murmur and discuss the dish we had given them permission to complain about.

I found the entire ordeal exhausting,

But my queen was pleasantly drinking and making eyes at me.

So we retired the event to our royal bedroom early. It was not our business to clean up.

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