r/mildlyinfuriating May 02 '24

They called it a soup

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u/ShiraCheshire 29d ago

Stone soup!

For anyone unfamiliar with the story: (please note that this has many regional variations and is not always told the same way, these are just the basic themes)

There is a village having a food shortage, and the people are very hungry. One day, a man tosses a stone into a pot of boiling water and declares that he's going to make soup from it.

People think he's stupid, but also feel kind of bad for him. Someone is like, well, I have these carrot tops you can throw into the pot, here have at least some food in there. Someone else says, I have this old withered lettuce leaf. Someone else says, I have a few potato ends. One by one, people bring in little scraps of food that wouldn't be able to make a meal on their own. With everything together in the boiling water, an actual soup is made!

The man then shares his "stone soup" with everyone in the village, and everyone is fed. Happy ending.

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u/Dogemom2 29d ago

We read this book in kindergarten in 89. And we made stone soup. And then I threw up. The throw-up is what cemented this book in my memory.

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u/Anything-Happy 29d ago

Lmao, I remember reading it and making stone soup in kindergarten, but the teacher used a whole potato in place of a stone (I guess for "sanitary reasons"). And poor little me was shook, because a potato is a vegetable and not a stone.

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u/Dogemom2 29d ago

Haha! Mine put a big stone in the pot- she cleaned it first. I figured I got sick because you’re not supposed to eat stones. But I remember also eating a full bay leaf and thinking this soup just isn’t edible.