"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
On 9/16/2011 8:19 PM, jmcquown wrote:
Oh, there are so many versions. This is the most popular.

Some travellers 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 travellers. So the travellers
go to the neck of the 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 travellers 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 just a little bit of carrot to
help them out, so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by,
inquiring about the pot, and the travellers 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, a delicious and
nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all.

Jill

Ah! Thank you Jill. I'd heard the term "stone soup" before, but didn't
know where I came from. I always thought it was a technique used in
ancient times when cooking vessels couldn't be put on a fire because
they'd break. So people would heat stones in a fire and then keep placing
them in the pot one after another until the contents of the pot were
cooked.


--
Hugs,

CatNipped

It's probably true about using hot stones to heat things up in what were
(likely) clay-based cooking pots But the tale of Stone Soup is about
being generous and sharing what you have with strangers.

Jill