‘O! yes, Signorina, anything which I can do without disobeying the king,’ replied the faithful servant.
‘Then this is it,’ said the princess. ‘Will you just oblige me so far as to cook papa’s dinner to-day without any salt in anything? Not the least grain in anything at all. Let it be as good a dinner as you like, but no salt in anything. Will you do that?’
‘I see!’ replied the cook, with a knowing nod. ‘Yes, depend on me, I will do it.’
That day at dinner the king had no salt in the soup, no salt in the boiled meat, no salt in the roast, no salt in the fried.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ said the king, as he pushed dish after dish away from him. ‘There is not a single thing I can eat to-day. I don’t know what they have done to everything, but there is not a single thing that has got the least taste. Let the cook be called.’
So the cook came before him.
‘What have you done to the victuals to-day?’ said the king, sternly. ‘You have sent up a lot of dishes, and no one alive can tell one from another. They are all of them exactly alike, and there is not one of them can be eaten. Speak!’
The cook answered:
‘Hearing your Majesty say that salt was the commonest thing that comes to table, and altogether so worthless and contemptible, I considered in my mind whether it was a thing that at all deserved to be served up to the table of the king; and judging that it was not worthy, I abolished it from the king’s kitchen, and dressed all the meats without it. Barring this, the dishes are the same that are sent every day to the table of the king.’
Then the king understood the value of salt, and he comprehended how great was the love of his youngest child for him; so he sent and had her apartment opened, and called her to him, never to go away any more.