Subject: Stone soup

From: [email-masked] (Barbara Middleton)
Date: 18 May 93 10:36:54 GMT

I'm new to this echo but I have this great recipe. It has some historic
value. I was given this book by a friend and it contained this recipe.
 
STONE SOUP
Put 4 clean stones, the size of a small potato, into a pot with 2 onions
3 tomatoes, 6 carrots, and 3 ribs of celery, all chopped fine. Add 1/4
cup of butter, 2 cups fresh corn, salt and pepper. Simmer till tender.
Remove the stones and serve the soup. But save the stones and perhaps
next time you may have meat for the soup and that will flavor the stones
for the time after that.
 
I hope this kind of entry is appropriate for this echo. Hope to be back
soon with more. Thanks  Barbara

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From: [email-masked] (Scott Fisher)
Date: Sun, 23 May 1993 02:01:54 GMT

>value. I was given this book by a friend and it contained this recipe.

Oh, but that misses the story that goes with it!  The whole tale is
so much fun, it's one of my favorite food stories.

It seems a soldier was passing through a village that had seen enough 
soldiers, so they hid their food to keep from having to share.  The
soldier realized that the people probably had more than they were letting
on, so, hungry as he was, he gathered up a number of large, smooth stones
from which he selected the finest.  Asking if he could use water from the
well, he was grudgingly allowed to gather some, which he put into a kettle
over a small fire.  Into the kettle he put the stone and a little salt.

"What are you making?" people would ask him.

"I'm making stone soup," he would tell them.  "It's an old family
recipe.  Of course, what it *really* needs," he told the first person
who came up, "is an onion, but..."

"Oh, I've got an onion I don't need," she said, and brought one by shortly.

To the next inquiry, he explained again that he was making stone soup. 
"But what would really give it flavor is an old marrowbone, maybe with
a little meat left on it."

"Oh, I think I can spare an old marrowbone," said the housewife, interested
in the new recipe.  So she returned with one covered with fine meat trimmings.

The next woman who asked got the same story, with the sighing comment that
stone soup just wasn't the same without a few carrots to give it sweetness.
In a few moments she returned with a handful of carrots from her garden.

And on it went through the day.  By suppertime, the soldier had the finest
kettle of stone soup he could remember, and he shared his family recipe
with the people of the village, who reciprocated by giving him some of
their bread, a little of the local wine, and some freshly churned butter.
The whole population turned out and made a festival out of it, and stone
sopu became the village's most famous dish from that day forward.

This, btw, is a great story to tell six- and seven-year-olds who are 
resisting the concepts of sharing and cooperation.

--Scott

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From: [email-masked] (Dave Platt)
Date: Sun, 23 May 1993 04:34:19 GMT

>STONE SOUP

Thanks, Barbara.  Fun reading.

There's a classic tale of a stranger who comes to town during a famine,
and can't find anyone to give him dinner.  So, he sets down in town
square, heats up his kettle, and starts preparing soup with nothing but
a couple of stones.  When asked what he's doing, he explains how
delicious stone soup is, and offers to share it when it's done (in a few
hours).  Of course, he points out, it's a bit better with some herbs to
perk up the broth... and somebody ambles away and returns with a handful
of herbs.  Soon the soup begins to smell herby and tasty... and the
stranger wishes for a potato or two to give it just a little more body.
Somebody goes back to her house and brings him a potato... and so forth.
A couple of hours later the whole town sits down to a delicious kettle
of stone soup... flavored with herbs, thickened with potato, given
texture by some rice, colored by a some tomato... sure sounds good to
me.

Then, there's the recipe for loon soup.  Much like stone soup... in fact
you do simmer the loon with a couple of good-sized stones.  When done,
throw away the loon and eat the stones... they're more tender and
distinctly tastier.

-- 
Dave Platt                                                VOICE: (415) 813-8917
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