Rock soup. Have you ever made it?

quote:

Originally posted by enginecapt

I ask because I saw one of the shows on the FN and the woman was making soup with a bigassed river rock in it, but no mention of using it to tempt the kiddies into the kitchen was made. I thought I might be missing some big nutritional secret about minerals or something like that there.

Nope, no secret ingredients beyond curiousity and co-operation.I guess that would include teamwork, too.

quote:

Originally posted by Mosca

If you don't know the story:
=======================
So, the use of the stone is to recall the familiar story of community and sharing, a cultural touchpoint.


Tom

That's a good story, Tom. I wish I'd known it to tell my kids, but the magic of the rock soup was good enough for their imagination at the time.

Thank you for relating that story Mosca. Not only had I never heard it, I managed to get to almost my 52nd year without ever hearing of a rock in a kettle of soup until that FN show a couple of weeks ago. I apparently wasn't paying attention or went to the head at the wrong time, because I never did figure out why she stuck that damn thing in there.

That was one of my favorite stories growing up; that, The Emperor's New Clothes, and one about being ashamed of unimportant things that I don't remember the name of; the boy dug a hole and shouted his secret into it, but reeds grew from the hole and when children picked them and blew through them, the secret came out from the reeds.

For Stone Soup, I gave the short version of it. I'm sure you could imagine the story much better. I told it to my daughter, I let it go on for about a half hour.


Tom

quote:

Originally posted by Mosca

That was one of my favorite stories growing up; that, The Emperor's New Clothes, and one about being ashamed of unimportant things that I don't remember the name of; the boy dug a hole and shouted his secret into it, but reeds grew from the hole and when children picked them and blew through them, the secret came out from the reeds.

For Stone Soup, I gave the short version of it. I'm sure you could imagine the story much better. I told it to my daughter, I let it go on for about a half hour.


Tom

It sounds as if you do a humdinger of a job of story telling, Tom!

quote:

Originally posted by Mosca

That was one of my favorite stories growing up; that, The Emperor's New Clothes, and one about being ashamed of unimportant things that I don't remember the name of; the boy dug a hole and shouted his secret into it, but reeds grew from the hole and when children picked them and blew through them, the secret came out from the reeds.

For Stone Soup, I gave the short version of it. I'm sure you could imagine the story much better. I told it to my daughter, I let it go on for about a half hour.


Tom

Msr. Mosca, that was a great Cliff's Notes version you gave :-)
Yup, it's a story about community and cooperation ... and about being a convincing speaker.

My mom used to read it to us too when we were very little.
I got read to a lot ... but my memory is faint - the reading stopped before I was very old as she had Multiple Sclerosis ... we also often listened to the Bremen Town Musicians ... and there was another story I can't remember the name of about a family that would grieve over a large ax on a wall above a doorway because they assumed it would fall and hit someone ... wish I could remember the name of it. It might have been a German fable - not sure.

Rock Soup can get expensive, depending on the rock, Air Soup is just as good, and costs next to nothing!

quote:

Originally posted by LuckyLabrador

Rock Soup can get expensive, depending on the rock, Air Soup is just as good, and costs next to nothing!

Some of the rock soups I've helped make have become quite involved, yes. We've even left the rock tenderizing while making foraging expeditions to the meat and/or seafood market. All of the soups have been good!

LuckyLabrador,my husband agrees with you...

Rock Soup With Edible Rock:

It is not only possible, but quite common to make rock soup wherein one eats rock and all. In fact most soup has too much rock in it, especially commercial soups. If you haven't guessed by now the rock in question is salt. As a natural occurring mineral, I believe salt qualifies as a rock.

As far as I can determine the stone soup story goes way back into history, with many versions. This makes me wonder if the story is based on a true story, long lost in the fog of time. I can well imagine an enterprising soul with a good source of salt but little else dropping a fist sized chunk of salt into a cauldron and enticing the rest of the community to add the rest of the ingredients.

In a way, the modern versions do not make sense to me as if the rock was still there at the end, unchanged and uneaten, the providers of real ingredients would have felt cheated. All of the versions I know of end with the soup being simply wonderful and everyone quite satisfied. This would support the theory of the rock being salt. It would both disappear and add a lot of flavor to the soup...amazing everyone and starting stories that would travel with humanity through time.

quote:

Originally posted by rouxdog

Well now, I'm a fixin to go throw a little hay to the Longhorns. I'll be looking for some good rocks.
Dick, rock soup sounds real good.

Ole Rouxdog

I'd be sure to carefully read the post that started this thread -- the part about sterilizing the rock.

I first heard of "Stone Soup" in the science fiction novel "Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven. A wonderful read, btw.

quote:

Originally posted by GordonW

quote:

Originally posted by rouxdog

Well now, I'm a fixin to go throw a little hay to the Longhorns. I'll be looking for some good rocks.
Dick, rock soup sounds real good.

Ole Rouxdog

I'd be sure to carefully read the post that started this thread -- the part about sterilizing the rock.

Rocks on the Ranch.

One of my former clients lives in 'Indian Old Fields' in Clark County Kentucky. He has a very large cattle farm. Out west you'd call it a ranch. He had an appreciation Bar-B-Q for his employees, friends, relatives, clients, vendors and whatnot. Quite a feed. Held in his big equipment barn. After we ate (gorged) to the max. I was sitting outside on an old wooden bench looking at Joe's backhoe and talking with a relative of his, he was scratching in the ground with a boot and darned if he didn't turn up an Indian Spear Point. Well, I'm no expert, but it was too big to be an arrowhead so I guess it went on a spear.

You can imagine the excitement this generated. After everyone had looked at it, Joe told the finder to keep it as a reminder of the day.
I kinda felt jealous, no, since I'm telling the tale I'll be honest, I didn't feel jealous, I was kinda angry, I was sitting right next to this guy, why couldn't I have found it???

The finder said "Oh no, Joe this artifact is part of this land it belongs on this farm. I couldn't take it, you keep it". Joe looked him in the eye and said "Thanks, I appreciate that".

Wham. Lightning bolt hit me. Thank you Lord that I didn't find that point. Because I would have kept it, and the point did really belong on the land. I learned a lesson that day.

quote:

Originally posted by rouxdog

Well now, I'm a fixin to go throw a little hay to the Longhorns. I'll be looking for some good rocks.
Dick, rock soup sounds real good.
The creative culinary delights I find on ROADFOOD never cease to amaze me! Who needs Martha Stewart when you have good friends who are genius in the kitchen!
Ole Rouxdog

Dang Roux,didn't know that you had a couple head of meat on the hoof out there! Couple rocks in the pit BBQ ought to do the trick, no need for the pot or water either!! Also have to try pitted turkey! MMMMMMM....
David O.

quote:

Originally posted by enginecapt

Why the rock? What's its purpose, other than displacing liquid that could end up going down my neck hole?

Ahh... there's the rub aye? Supposed to pull the rock before service!!!
Gives a great foundation! Imagination!!!
David O.

The way way back concept of rock soup is you heated rocks and used them as the heat source for cooking your stew. No pots, so you used animal skin pouches and dropped hot rocks into them to do the cooking.

Another drawback with Rock soup is that if you try to eat it with a plastic soup spoon, the dang thing usually breaks, splashing boiling Rock soup on you!

"NO ROCK SOUP FOR YOU!!!"

quote:

Originally posted by GordonW

quote:

Originally posted by rouxdog

Well now, I'm a fixin to go throw a little hay to the Longhorns. I'll be looking for some good rocks.
Dick, rock soup sounds real good.

Ole Rouxdog

I'd be sure to carefully read the post that started this thread -- the part about sterilizing the rock.

Sugar qualifies as a rock, when crystalized. My Dad once told me about having mystified a rock hound about the type of rock he had. I won't blow the punch line because I included it in my western book. :-)

quote:

Originally posted by enginecapt

Why the rock? What's its purpose, other than displacing liquid that could end up going down my neck hole?

As I recall, it was a Native-American way of cooking in general. I don't know if it were to be able to cook and transport food at the same time, or what have you.

What I do remember is the testing and learning which stones would be appropriate. The rocks would have to be dry, not from the river. If they were from the river, they'd be wet and if they were wet, they'd explode in the fire.

The idea was to heat the stones in the fire and then put them into a cooking vessel of some sort, (skins?), and the hot stones would heat the liquid and cook the food.

I'll look it up and if I find anything I'll come back... .

quote:

Originally posted by V960

The way way back concept of rock soup is you heated rocks and used them as the heat source for cooking your stew. No pots, so you used animal skin pouches and dropped hot rocks into them to do the cooking.

Oops!! I just saw this post. I didn't realize this had gone into two pages.

Wasn't riding your coattails there, V960, I promise!!

Dry, smooth, river stones.

http://www.hpj.com/wsdocs/recipes/012907bevs.cfm

http://www.wikihow.com/Cook-With-Rocks

http://www.hamptondining.com/pageColumnist.asp?RECORDID=244

a few years ago I taught a unit on serveral variations of the stone soup story. We read the Native american version, a traditional European version, a Tex Mex Story and a couple others. I was really happy with how the whole unit went since the kids were special needs kids, but they really enjoyed the concept and the differences in the way of using a plot..
Obviously we made Stone soup.. Used a big crock pot and cooked it allll that school day.

The stuff was wonderful, and We had enough for several guests. I was really happy with how much food the parents contributed..

Shoot I had forgotten, on Dec first our church held the church Christmas decorating party and stone soup dinner.. we started decorating about 9 am and everyone brought something to go into an enormous soup pot.. ooooooooooooooohhh god that stone soup was good.. they used the same big Gennesee river rock every year. Stone soup, bread, salad and coffee... yum

How wonderful!!!!

That amazing band "Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show" had a song entitled
"The Wonderful Soup Stone"... kinda touching if I remember correctly (and I do)...

When I was a little girl, my Daddy was out of work one Summer and we ran out of food....the people around us gave us some veggies but we didn't have any meat...Mama made stone soup for us...she told us the stone was better than meat and we had a delicious soup...My sister and I still, to this day...remember how good that soup was.