Like baking the love of stories has been passed down generation to generation. Bedtime as a child holds some of my fondest memories. My brother and I would snuggle on either side of my mom as she brought to life the stories contained in our story books. We loved those stories so much my parents would get us ready a half hour before bedtime just so we could fit everything in. For Mom she has wonderful memories of her grandmother telling her tales off by heart. Mom has always loved words and she can still recall how descriptive her grandmother was when telling her stories.

One of her favorite tales was that of stone soup. A man passing through a village is kindly offered shelter, but the villagers have no food for him to spare. The man tells them not to worry as he will make himself some stone soup if they could lend him a pot and spare some water to put over his fire. Once he has the pot over the fire the villagers watch as he reverently pulls out a silk pouch from his pocket before carefully withdrawing a stone he then places in the pot. The villagers come closer curious to see how the man will make soup from a stone. As they gather round warming themselves by the fire the traveler tells them of his love for stone soup especially when he adds some cabbage. One of the villagers realizes they have a small bit of cabbage, so they run home to add it to the soup. Next the man mentions how lovely carrots and potatoes would be in the soup. A few more villagers knowing they have those ingredients rush home to add them to the soup. As time progresses more and more vegetables are mentioned and then provided by the villagers until there is enough hearty soup for them all to enjoy together. The next morning, a leader of the small village offers to buy the stone off the traveler for never have they experienced such a pleasant night with such good food. The man refuses and departs but not before explaining that it was not the stone that made the soup but the generosity of all the villagers.

Mom loved listening to her Grandma Rankin tell this story as a child and was pleasantly surprised when she came across it in the kindergarten curriculum when she was our kinder cook mom. I can still remember being in the small kitchen in our school with my classmate’s watching mom place a stone in a pot of water as she spun the tale of stone soup. It is one of the few memories I have of kindergarten and one of my favourites. We were lucky to have her. The next year when my brother was in kindergarten his classmates along with himself were also lucky to watch Mom spin the tale and make stone soup.

When we set out to do a post on cabbage soup Mom was once more reminded of the story of stone soup. Although the soup is not made because of the generosity of many people it is often different every time depending on what we have in the fridge. Sometimes we will use leftover pasta sauce instead of tomato paste, sometimes we add beans, other times not. It really all depends, but no matter what we add it is always delicious. We hope you have enjoyed the tale of stone soup if you have not yet heard it and that it inspires you to make some soup of your own, below you will find our version but don’t let that stop you from adding to the recipe!

Ingredients

4 cups diced cabbage
1 cup diced carrots
1½ cup diced onion
⅓ cup celery diced
1½ cup diced potato
1 cup diced ham
1 can navy beans
2 cartons or 7-8 cups no salt chicken broth
2 tbsp tomato paste
¼ tsp smoked paprika
¼ tsp poultry spice
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp salt