Once upon a time, there lived a young man named Alexander who was looking to take charge of his life and become a successful businessman. While he was exploring what business he could start doing to support his family, he met a very well-traveled man.  The older man told Alexander great tales of his travels and then he talked about a country that had no onions.

“No onions!” exclaimed Alexander. In all his life, he had never heard of such a thing. “ How can anyone enjoy the true pleasure of food without onions?”

Without any further thoughts, he bought onions, filled his cart and set his journey towards this whimsical land of no onions.  After several days he arrived in the country without onions. He quickly made his way to the palace where the guards were fascinated enough by the weird cargo that they allowed him to meet the king. “ I bring you a great gift from my country” Alexander proudly announced. “The plant is native to my place but new to yours. It has the unique ability to enhance the flavor of any food. It will be great if I could offer you this magnificent plant which you can introduce to your people.” The emperor was skeptical at first about the weird plant but he decided to allow Alexander to prepare some delicacies using the onions.

Alexander was under a lot of pressure and had to use all his culinary skills to prepare the best feast they ever had in this country using the onions. All the empire’s ministers, the nobility and seniors officials were invited to the dinner that night. After the young man did the initial tasting, the feast commenced. Everyone in the room started eating the food. It didn’t take long for the hall to become noisy because of all the excitement. The smell and the taste of the food was praised by all. The king thanked Alexander and demanded the entire batch of onions and paid him its weight in gold.

In his journey back home, Alexander met a trader. He shared his magnificent story about the country. For hours that night, Alexander recounted the splendor and magnificence he had seen in that far-away land, where gold was worth less than onions. He also told the trader that he learned that the country did not have garlic. The trader was excited to learn that and thought he could replicate the success of the young man by introducing garlic to the country. “Garlic is infinitely more tasty and aromatic! If they were giving gold for onions there, he could expect diamonds for garlic,” the trader thought.

With that in mind, the enterprising trader bought huge bags of garlic and started his journey to the country without garlic, while the whole trip thinking about the riches he was sure to receive. Since the land was recently overjoyed by the introduction of the onions, they were more open to the idea of trying his garlic. The royal guards took the man with the new herbs to the king.

The king asked him to prepare a feast using garlic. The trader was very excited and made several tasty dishes using garlic. As he had expected the garlic received even more praises than the onions. The Emperor discussed with his ministers for a long time about the reward for their noble guest who introduced them with the garlic. After some discussion, they all agreed that the gold was not enough for such delicious food. So they decided to reward him with the most precious thing they had to offer. What can be more precious than gold? Onions!

That night the trader returned home with bags full of onions.