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Stone Soup

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Stone Soup Stone Soup Adda It39s what you bring to the pot

Stone Soup is an old folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as axe soup, button soup, nail soup, and wood soup.

Contents

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Story

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Some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travelers. Then the travelers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out, so that gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which has not reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, the stone (being inedible) is removed from the pot, and a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all. Although the travelers have thus tricked the villagers into sharing their food with them, they have successfully transformed it into a tasty and nutritious meal which they share with the donors.

Variations

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  • The Eastern European variation of the story (which is similar to the Northern European rendition) is called "axe soup", with an axe as the catalyst.
  • In the French and Hungarian versions of the tale, the travelers are soldiers returning home. In the French version, three soldiers are returning home from the Napoleonic Wars. In the Hungarian version, a single starving soldier encounters several hardships on his journey back to his homeland. In Russian tradition, a soldier prepares "axe kasha" (Каша из топора).
  • Johann Peter Hebel wrote a German version, "Der schlaue Pilgrim" ("The Cunning Pilgrim", 1811), in which a wily pilgrim, allegedly on his way to Jerusalem, tricks a hostess step-by-step into adding rich soup ingredients to his pebble stones, finally leaving the stones uneaten.
  • In Northern European and Scandinavian countries, the story is most commonly known as "nail soup", and the main character is typically a tramp looking for food and lodgings, who convinces an old woman that he will make a tasty nail soup for the both of them if she would just add a few ingredients for the garnish.
  • In the Portuguese tradition, the traveler is a monk, and the story takes place around Almeirim, Portugal. Nowadays sopa de pedra is considered a regional dish of Almeirim.

    • Stone Soup Stone Soup Memories in the Making The Nourishing Home

    References

    Stone Soup Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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