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.
You must log in or register to comment.
Remember: you have to start it cooking by putting in a stone.
The Soup of Theseus
this comment goes hard, mind if i screenshot
Don’t do it, that would get you banned from the internet!
you can neither stop me nor even tell if i’ve done it 😼
Does this mean that they started the first batch thousands of years ago with Theseus in it?
Them’s good eatin’. Add some broth, a potato… baby, you got a stew going.
I love that lol.
Just don’t scrape the pot too hard when stirring it.
I solve this issue by making my perpetual stew in the crater of a tiny extinct volcano.
They usually use fire, so less a weaker flame no?, also, just scrape it everytime problem solved
Look my iron deficiency isn’t going to fix itself…
Best way to avoid cleaning the pot!
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.
The constant heat and the constant turnover of food/water keep it food-safe
Made one during the pandemic lockdown. Lasted about a month before I got tired of soup.
Was it good though?
My husband and I had one going for a little over a week before the lockdowns as well. I just kinda lost interest in it.
Kudos to your dedication!
One minor cultural artifact of this general idea:
Pease porridge hot, Pease porridge cold, Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.
I would unironically love it if a restaurant had this
A little soup store in Illinois called journeys end did something like this. (Long gone, a Walgreens got it)
They’d have pots of soup that would kinda morph into the next one. It was pure comfort food and their sandwiches were dope. RIP.
But it was popular. I think more places should do it.
Right? It sounds delicious. Not sure how that would fly with modern health and safety rules, though. The Wikipedia entry says a New York restaurant did one for ~8 months, so it must be possible somehow.
In a comment a few minutes after yours, fellow lemmy buttPickle posted this:
45 years
I saw that, and I also vaguely remember reading that in the past. So I guess it was less TIL and more “today I remembered” lol.
Needs to be kept above 70degC so heating could be costly. Other than that it’s safer than refridgeration as that only slows growth whereas keeping it hot prevents any growth at all.
Better: Above 60°C pasteurizes the contents so killing all bacteria.
Technically pasteurization is met by holding the food over a specific temperature for a specific time, so over 63-65°C for 30 minutes, or 100°C for 12 seconds.
Normal pasteurization is very similar to cooking in times and temperature, and so pasteurization cooks both the food, altering texture, appearance and taste, and the bacteria.
UHT means ultra high temperature pasteurisation, which heats, eg, milk well over 100°C for only a couple of seconds and immediately cools it, minimizing the alteration of the milk.
So, by keeping the stew over 70°C, the stew is completely food safe.
Learned that this was a thing in kingdom come: deliverance :D
My dad was a cowboy and they had this cooking in little cabins on the open range.
