Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/19/this-soup-has-been-simmering-f.html
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Isn’t this sort of like the story of the janitor who owned the same push brush for 60 years, after replacing the handle 20 times and the brush 30 times, but it’s the same push brush. I mean, what part of the soup is really 45 years old? Oh and… eww!
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Or the Theseus paradox. Same idea:
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Reminds me of the opening lines of John Dies At The End! Found the text here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/lullabydust.tumblr.com/post/65438836771/john-dies-at-the-end-opening-lines/amp
Funny book, worth the read!
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Just sounds like leftovers to me.
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Haha instead of “its better the next day” we have “its better the next 16,425th day”
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Uh, no… it takes connective tissue a long time to break down… that’s what separates the wheat from the chaff. It’s why braised items are so good. Well, that and the vegetables.
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Big deal, I’ve been simmering for 59 years.
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So, it’s like sourdough (except, the sourdough culture isn’t cooked).
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Only to homeopaths is this the “same soup”.
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It’s almost the Theseus paradox. Theseus’ boat is eventually completely replaced. This soup is exponentially diluted. It still contains some of the original soup, altbeit at homeopathic concentration. It’s kind of a Theseus/Zeno paradox mashup.
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I can only speak about my experience with Chinese cookery.
This reminds me of “old water.”
Lu shui or “old water” refers to the same recycling of liquid (whether for sauce, for soup, etc.) as described in the OP video.
I have worked in Chinese restaurants where there’s a stockpot / cooking vessel on a burner, kinda forever, and into it are thrown all the yummy soup-stock-food-bits that make it flavorful. Lots of umami (which yeah ok is a Japanese word but it fits) and usually quite rich.
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Yeah, “unique”. Sure, let’s go with that.
Cafe de Olla is often made the same way–you never empty the pot, just add more to it. I don’t know if anyone is keeping track of the longest-running pot.
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If stirring counts as succusion, 45 years worth of serial dilutions make this soup a candidate for the most potentized food on the planet.
Edit: This should have been a reply to @doctordave
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This immediately reminded me of a falafel joint I worked at years ago whose owners were such cheap bastards they’d refuse to change the deep fryer oil until just before the health inspector was due to show up. We’d be pleading with them because we didn’t want to poison the customers and we couldn’t stand the stench.
And yeah - after 45 years the oldest stuff in the soup pot is probably just from a few days ago.
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Yep. If my calculations are correct, just smelling it should make you fatally starve.
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The Pushbrush of Theseus.
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Good movie too.
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Calls to my mind Tim Powers’ The Drawing of the Dark, in which the oldest beer in the word is brewed in a vat that is never completely emptied.
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