August 2001

. . . And Throughout the Kingdom, Prosperity Reigned

Before the vote was taken, many CRTs had already begun to realize that there was a need for CRTs to think about the future of their profession. Indeed, even the CRTs from the distant and remote places now recognized that food tasting would not be a task that would be forever done manually by testers. New technology now enabled those tasting tasks, originally done by the tasters, to be done by the royal court with the aid of the new TurboTaste computer analysis.

And so it came to pass, after much discussion, as the leaves turned color and dropped gently from the trees, the time for the vote arrived. Certifying the result was the firm of MarwickTouchePriceAndersen and Young, CRTs (the so-called “Big One,” following a series of mergers). To the disappointment of a few, and the delight of many, the measure passed by an overwhelming margin. The result brought an end to the squabbling among the CRTs, particularly once the venerable profession began to witness a burgeoning rise in the number of students enrolled in courses aimed at earning the food testing degree.

The students recognized that the new credential would open up worlds of possibilities for careers that offered exciting opportunities. The students had only begun to hear about these opportunities in those enlightened universities where the CRT curriculum included more than the traditional tasting courses. Indeed, those universities’ curriculum often included courses in Eating and Tasting: the Highest Ideals for the Clearinghouse Standards (ETHICS) that pleased the Safe Eating Clearinghouse (SEC) so much that they realized that the newly credentialed professionals were indeed answering to the higher standards of the profession!

Furthermore, even the most adamant royal critic was swayed as, lo and behold, those with a CRT combined with the newly approved credential found themselves repaid ten-thousand-fold in all aspects of the multikingdom food processing, purveying, distributing, and digesting business. In fact, some of these royal subjects even obtained gourmet chef credentials, known throughout the kingdom for such specialties as Carpaccio of Kangaroo, Brazil Nut Soup, Lobster Thermidor, and Tom Kha Kai. And in all the land, far and wide, no one ever went hungry again.