A perpetual stew, also known as forever soup, hunter’s pot, or hunter’s stew, is a pot into which foodstuffs are placed and cooked, continuously. The pot is never or rarely emptied all the way, and ingredients and liquid are replenished as necessary. Such foods can continue cooking for decades or longer if properly maintained. The concept is often a common element in descriptions of medieval inns.

Foods prepared in a perpetual stew have been described as being flavorful due to the manner in which the ingredients blend together. Various ingredients can be used in a perpetual stew such as root vegetables, tubers (potatoes, yams, etc.), and various meats.

      • nogooduser@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        To be more specific: you can drink the liquid part of the soup. You get soup with big chunks of meat and veg in it which doesn’t make it a stew even though you wouldn’t be able to drink it.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      12 hours ago

      Does this mean that they started the first batch thousands of years ago with Theseus in it?

        • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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          12 hours ago

          you can neither stop me nor even tell if i’ve done it 😼

          • BossDj@lemm.ee
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            10 hours ago

            What’s doing on here? I came because I sensed a disturbance in the Web

            • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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              10 hours ago

              puts hands over suspiciously screenshot shaped tummy

              …nothing 👀

          • P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br
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            10 hours ago

            Why would someone downvote this person? I guess there’s people who are mean for no good reason everywhere…

            • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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              10 hours ago

              yep i made the mistake of conversing with the wrong person in a politics thread and now i’m watching them go through my profile and systematically downvote everything latest to earliest 😅 you would think we are all grown adults on here but many such cases

              • P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br
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                9 hours ago

                How much recently did this happened? I feel like I’ve already seen you before saying this…

                Well, I guess that now you got a follower!

                • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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                  9 hours ago

                  about an hour ago 😂 it’s certainly not the first, probably not the last time

    • Mike D.@lemm.ee
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      9 hours ago

      Awesome.

      I was leaving the library over day with my son and looked at the cart of free books. Stone Soup was on that cart and damned sure I grabbed it.

      Gifted it to a friend on their child’s first birthday.

  • wjrii@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    One minor cultural artifact of this general idea:

    Pease porridge hot, Pease porridge cold, Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.

  • metaStatic@kbin.earth
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    8 hours ago

    My favourite soup is the garbage disposal soup. Throw all your food scraps into the freezer and at the end of the week boil it in a soup/stock.

    This hunters malarkey would require you to add edible food and keep it cooking, which just sounds expensive on every level.

    • fern@lemmy.autism.place
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      45 minutes ago

      Tried this last year for 2 months. Adding edible food was just another potato or vegetable and water/stock, and it doesn’t need to be heated the whole time, it’d get fridged at night, but between lunch and dinner times I’d put it up to stew.

  • JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    So we’re germs like an issue with this? Or was it okay because it was always kept heated? I mean, obviously they theu didn’t know about germs in the middle ages, but they still woulda been there.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      7 hours ago

      As long as it is always kept hot then it shouldn’t be any problem at all. It can never be allowed to cool for very long though.

      • skoell13@feddit.org
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        2 hours ago

        So also keep it on while sleeping? Sounds a bit scary. I guess back in the days someone was chosen to keep the fire running anyways but nowadays? Also turnover wouldn’t happen for a few hours.

        • superkret@feddit.org
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          15 minutes ago

          Back then the fire in the stove was also what heated your home.
          And lighting fire was very difficult, so you kept it burning.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      The constant heat and the constant turnover of food/water keep it food-safe

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      9 hours ago

      I sure the occasional person was unlucky and got a bowl that wasn’t cooked enough. There’s also a big difference between adding more to an 80% full pot vs a 20% full one for ingredient turnover.

    • illi@lemm.ee
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      30 minutes ago

      I honestly went into comments for some “Henry’s come to see us!” memes.

  • Today@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    My dad was a cowboy and they had this cooking in little cabins on the open range.