X Pat and the chocolate factory
September 2006
The trauma of revealing my first name, that X which marks the spot of my shame, to a complete stranger at a knitting bar in Gent sent my head reeling and wheeling out of control. So, you will forgive me, dear Reader, if I desist from making any more public exposés for the time being.
I spent the rest of that night downing
countless Krieks without a paddle – and I don’t even like cherry beer. Unable
to drown my sorrows, I decided to succumb to boyhood naughtiness and smother
them in chocolate. When chocolate first arrived in Europe from the Americas, it
was pedalled as a miracle medicine, a panacea. In some ways, it still is,
although it has become a licit recreational drug.
In a bout of unadulterated recklessness, I went
to Brussels’ most exclusive chocolatier and ordered a dozen bars of luxury
pralines, each individually wrapped in genuine platinum foil.
I prayed that my bank balance would cover it,
as my debit card beeped its disapproval at the outrageous amount being demanded
of it. Until the 19th century, the price of chocolate made it the
preserve of the nobility and royalty.
The woman behind the counter added a 13th
praline on the house, advising, like a wise bartender: “Mon ami, nothing is as
terrible as it seems at moments like these. Go easy on the chocolate for your
own good.”
Touched by her concern, I withdrew to a corner
table where, pacing myself, I savoured every wondrous, delight-filled bite. A
couple of absent-minded hours later, I awoke to the realisation that only the
13th praline remained. I opened the wrapper with a melancholic shrug
of the shoulders, whereupon a shimmering, solid gold card fell out.
As if on cue, an old man with silver hair – and
I mean metallic, here – hopped out of a backroom and started winking
compulsively at me. “Bravo, monsieur, goed bezig,” he said in that bilingually
erratic Bruxellois fashion of a dying generation. “You have won a special tour
of my top-secret chocolate atelier which has been in the family for
generations.”
His left eyelid twitching uncontrollably like a
camera shutter, he finally introduced himself: “I am Willy Winker, the
proprietor of this establishment.” Leading me to a secret doorway disguised as
a chocolate waterfall, we entered the improbably massive workshop.
More artists than artisans, the workers stood
in their little studios in wild-haired, chocolate-speckled fudginess as they
sought to perfect their latest masterpieces of chocol’art. “Merde! Merde!!” an
engineer with a spanner cursed as brown liquid oozed out of a machine he was
repairing.
“Why is Belgian chocolate so sublime?” I asked,
with the subtle flavours of the pralines making my taste buds blossom.
“The history of chocolate, like the confection
itself, is both bitter and sweet,” he began poetically, gazing into the distant
past. “The Spanish brought it back from the Americas. Belgium was part of the
Spanish empire, and that is how we discovered chocolate.”
He reflected regretfully on the dark roots of
Belgium’s modern success: the cocoa fields of the Congo gave its chocolate
industry the raw materials to thrive.
On the sweeter side, Winker told me about how
historical favours are repaid: the mayor of Zurich first came across chocolate
in Brussels and took it back with him to Switzerland in 1697. Two centuries
later, the Swiss family Neuhaus created the first praline in the Belgian
capital in 1912.
“I’ve always wondered how they got those delicious fillings inside,” I admitted in besotted naivety.
Winking conspiratorially – or perhaps
uncontrollably – Willy Winker said: “Ahh, that is an extremely delicate
operation.” He led me into what looked like a state-of-the-art operating
theatre. Dressed in surgical masks, we watched a surgeon cautiously slice open
a giant praline, while her assistant infused it with a sweet-smelling and
intoxicating mix of the chocolatier’s secret cream, nut and chocolate recipes.
I tried to take my leave when Winker leapt in
front of me. “Ik denk het niet, manneke. Ce n’est pas possible, eh?” he laughed
fiendishly, as his eyelid flapped maddeningly. “All who enter the inner sanctuary
may never leave. You have been chosen to become a member of our secret society,
chocolate’s crème de la crème.”
Will X Pat find a way out of Willy Winker’s
clutches and escape his life sentence behind chocolate bars? Find out in the next exciting episode.
By Khaled Diab
This article appeared in the September 2006
issue of (A)WAY magazine.
More X Pat
Episode I – X Pat: Quantum leaps, beer
and knitting
Episode III – X Pat: Do not release
until Xmas
ã2006 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website
is the copyright of Khaled Diab.