The Tale of The Goodness

Once Upon A Time…

There was a princess 

Our princess came from a beautiful land. In this land meat was sweet, trees sang and the rain fell warm. This was because in this land existed the goodness

But for our princess, this land was only something she could picture and recall faint memories of. For you see, the king and queen were forced to leave 

Ashen faces from across the sea had swum, flown and swarmed into the land, and had begun to steal the meat, tap the trees and collect the rain, and carry the goodness back to their own land, to nourish themselves

In an effort to bring back some of the goodness taken, the king and queen had decided to move to the land across the sea, hoping that they could return with what was stolen

Taking the then small princess - and with the queen’s belly full of two princes - the king and queen flew

Years passed and though they had promised to return home soon, the princess began to realise that soon might never come

The king and queen had begun working hard to gather what was taken. The queen would clean huge palaces, the king would drive shiny, dark carriages. 

But it was not enough. Soon the king and queen realised that to bring the goodness back would take a while. In fact their subjects had grown tired of waiting, and some had even flown across the sea to join them, believing that if they couldn’t have the goodness at home, at least they could be near it in the ashen land

Each day that passed, the king and queen noticed more and more of their subjects had come to join them but that even though they were near the goodness, it was not enough. The ashen faces had made it hard to even catch a glimpse of it

The king and queen wanted to do what they could for their people. So one day, they took a seed they’d brought from home and planted it in the grey earth and prayed that something would grow

Soon, food sprouted. But not the food of this land, but food from home. The largest yams, the sweetest plantains, ugu so green it sparkled, everything that the people craved, emerged

So the king and queen set up a haven, where their people could come and find the food they needed to make dishes to remind them of home. And through those dishes, the people were warmed, their bellies sang, their smiles were sweet and a little bit of the goodness found its way back to them