Perpetual Broths

December 18, 2022 12:34 PM

"Taking stock of the world’s oldest soups:" at Atlas Obscura, Blair Mastbaum writes of diligently maintained soup and stew bases kept boiling for many years, including those used for the neua tune (a type of beef stew) at Wattana Panich in Bangkok and the oden broth at Otafuku in Tokyo. On a related note, a Reddit commenter discusses claims of centuries-old pot-au-feu stocks in France.
posted by misteraitch (28 comments total)

I think it’s in Idoru where Gibson describes this soup cart where the same family has kept a kettle of soup going constantly over several generations. I can’t recall if it’s a couple hundred years, but I do recall it being a substantial length of time. I always loved that image.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:52 PM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

The broth of Theseus! (Mentioned at the top of the linked Reddit thread, but I still couldn’t resist.)
posted by TedW at 1:14 PM on December 18, 2022 [7 favorites]

I once heard of an Irish version of continuous stew, but it's not mentioned on the Wikipedia page so maybe I dreamt it.
posted by rhizome at 1:15 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

What's the longest time that can be distinguished by smell/taste? Like obviously you can tell the difference between a day long soup and a two hour soup. I assume you can tell a week from 3 days. Can you tell a year from a month? A decade from a year?
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 2:16 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've heard of the 100+ year old frying grease at Dyer's Burgers, but I wonder if anyone's gone longer.
posted by credulous at 2:19 PM on December 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

Come to think of it, my family has something similar. In February 1973 (I know the exact date because of a letter in my late parents’ effects) my parents attended an Episcopalian Dioscesan convention in Savannah, GA, where they were served Chatham Artillery Punch. The recipe they got was much closer to the one in the picture than the one in the article; specifically as regards tea. The recipe they got included gunpowder green tea, which my father thought might have explained the “artillery” in the name, and was not easy to find in 1970s Georgia outside of Atlanta. Older recipes call for soaking orange and/or lemon peel in sugar for several weeks to extract the oils before using the sugar in the recipe, so my parents took it to heart and started preparing the punch at least a month before they wanted to roll it out to their guests at our big Thanksgiving celebration. My father was a departmental chairman at the academic institution where he worked, and it was a new department that included an lot of people who had recently moved here and had no family or other connections outside of work. So my parents hosted Thanksgiving for everyone who didn’t have family in town; throughout the 70s it ranged from 20 to 40 people at our house. So in 1973 they rolled out the Artillery Punch, and it was a huge hit; but by 1974 most guests knew to pace themselves. Considering the labor involved in making it, my parents saved the leftovers for the next year. Given the alcohol content spoilage was not a concern. The process repeated itself year after year, and the family lore was that last year’s leftovers gave the punch it’s unique character. By the 1980s everyone had put down roots and the guests dwindled to just our family, but the punch continued, always saving some for the next year. To this day my sister has a bottle labeled “Artillery Punch”, with a pedigree that can be traced back to autumn of 1973. Which reminds me, next year will be the 50th anniversary! Cheers!
posted by TedW at 2:41 PM on December 18, 2022 [55 favorites]

Chatham Artillery Punch

(When that old recipe in the link mentioned catawba wine I was so confused--but apparently catawba isn't just another way to spell catalpa but can also refer to a local grape! That's a relief, nobody's making wine out of those weird catalpa beans!)
posted by mittens at 2:50 PM on December 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ah yes. The axe of my grandfather that I use to knead gramer's sourdough.
posted by BlueHorse at 3:07 PM on December 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

In Mexico City I tried a mole that was about 8 years old, and while it wasn't a 10,000x brain-breaking experience it was still outstanding, and had a depth and nuance that you could tell was because of its heritage. But I wonder the same thing- after a month, a year, does it become more about the story than about the actual ingredients? That's part of the experience, too.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 3:29 PM on December 18, 2022 [8 favorites]

A flatmate of mine attempted to do a perpetual fish head curry in a rice cooker once. Don’t do that.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 6:17 PM on December 18, 2022 [15 favorites]

What they lack in hearty thickness, boiling hot springs in Yellowstone probably make up for in age and variety of ingredients.
posted by jamjam at 7:23 PM on December 18, 2022 [5 favorites]

I love the idea, but feel like it is unlikely that any significant flavor remains beyond a few days. But if I were near a place that has a perpetual broth, I would surely give it a try.
posted by snofoam at 7:29 PM on December 18, 2022

In Mark Arnold’s “Pilgrims to the Cathedral,” the proprietor of the drive-in central to the story keeps a big pot of chili going for about a decade. Maybe more. I always wondered if that was really possible. I guess now I know.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 8:31 PM on December 18, 2022

Recall that the solution to pollution is dilution... Anything special here (especially given the high temperature) is going to be homeopathy for cooking.

Fermentation, on the other hand, provides a much more plausible culture for intergenerational secret sauce.
posted by kaibutsu at 8:55 PM on December 18, 2022 [5 favorites]

There used to be a pub local to me that had 'brown soup' on the menu, which was whatever was left from the day before and whatever came to hand. At certain times of year when peas were plentiful the menu would change to 'green soup'.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 9:30 PM on December 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

I first heard of a perpetual stew from a John O'Hara story. It was a truck stop feature.
posted by ovvl at 9:39 PM on December 18, 2022

This thread reminds me of John Thorne's (previously) essay "pot on the fire" where he bring up the Anglo French writer Roy Andries De Groot (whom he wasn't too fond of) and this bit about de Groot finding himself in a cafe in Arcachon looking for lunch after a fruitless afternoon lost in Gironde

"He picked up an unfamiliar but delicious aroma wafting from the kitchen. What, he asked Madame, was that? Oh it is nothing , she said, just the family meal, an ordinary dish, a plain stew, too simple for a gentleman such as himself. He demurred; this was just the sort of thing for a gentleman such as himself. And the reader knows, even before he has described it, that he is about to have one of the best meals of his life:

When the unknown dish was placed at the center of the table, it appeared as an enormous earthenware toupin, radiating warmth. The steaming fragrance, when the lid was lifted, made waiting almost unbearable. The gently bubbling stew appeared to be a close cousin of boeuf bourgignon but was cooked in the red wine of Bordeaux. The flavour of the wine were as if it were concentrated yet softened. This effect was achieved, as I was soon to learn later, by the use of sweet figs. The chunks of beef, pork, mushrooms , carrots and onions were covered and unified by a wine sauce thickened, not with flour, but with a distillation of mashed vegetables Intrigued, I asked how long the dish had been cooking. "It has been on our fire for ten years, Monsieur!" Unbelieving, I prodded:. "in all that time how often has the pot been refilled" "In ten years, Monsieur, the pot has never been emptied!"

"It was at this point that I threw the book against the wall."

In the end, he admits to respecting the mystique of the eternal pot on the fire (purple prose aside) even if he also recognizes his own skepticism that such a thing could ever be maintained properly.
posted by bl1nk at 9:42 PM on December 18, 2022

I've begun investing in stocks. Soon I will be a buillionaire.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:49 PM on December 18, 2022 [33 favorites]

My mother tells a hippie share house horror story of a housemate who attempted to get a perpetual stew going. It was ‘simmering’ for a few weeks, until one day the gas went out. It took them another day or so to notice, at which point although the pot was cold, the stew was still gently bubbling. Turns out it’d been fermenting not simmering after all.

That story usually comes out alongside the one about 70s home brew kombucha giving people botulism.
posted by threecheesetrees at 9:55 PM on December 18, 2022 [8 favorites]

Last time I was in Tainan we went to Du Hsiao Yueh Danzai Noodles which has a pot that they claim has been in continuous operation for decades - never cleaned, always on. Everyone had the noodles and agreed they were very good. But I don't think anyone believed they would have known there was anything remarkable about them compared to noodles NOT cooked in broth that's been simmering for years.
posted by potrzebie at 11:45 PM on December 18, 2022

Can someone let me know if this 100 year old balsamic vinegar still tastes good?
posted by nikoniko at 12:11 AM on December 19, 2022

I had a UK neighbour who was electrician for about 20 years in one of the big London hotels (I forget the name). I remember him saying one of his key responsibilities was ensuring power didn't go off to a stove where a pot was always simmering; this was the stock pot, he understood it was at least 50 years old. He wasn't a joking person, so I've always accepted this as likely true.
posted by unearthed at 12:34 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

On a related note, a Reddit commenter discusses claims of centuries-old pot-au-feu stocks in France.
That was me! An interesting topic this one, but yet another example of how a nice but not very credible story can enter popular culture and become "fact".
posted by elgilito at 5:45 AM on December 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

I've heard of the 100+ year old frying grease at Dyer's Burgers, but I wonder if anyone's gone longer.

I wish I had known about this place before my last visit to Memphis!
posted by slogger at 6:36 AM on December 19, 2022

A fraternity at my college had an alcoholic punch that went back generations. It was made in a big barrel, and every year they'd take a gallon or so of it and keep it to add to the next years batch (and, theoretically, they cleaned out the barrel). I remember thinking it was kind of gross, but was assured that it was perfectly sanitary due to the incredible amounts of alcohol in it.
posted by Gray Duck at 7:03 AM on December 19, 2022

It was made in a big barrel, and every year they'd take a gallon or so of it and keep it to add to the next years batch

See also Gale's Prize Old Ale
posted by GeorgeBickham at 8:13 AM on December 19, 2022

Dyer's 100- year-old grease fried burgers are amazing. You also want a fried bologna sandwich if you go.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:55 AM on December 19, 2022

We all know the (somewhat oddly secular, come to think of it) parable of the stone soup, right?

Where crafty but not evil poor and hungry people trick more prosperous selfish people into feeding them by boiling up a bunch of stones in a pot and pretending they are making a delicious stone soup they are willing to share if the prosperous ones will add a 'garnish', and the end result is that everyone gets a delicious meal and builds healthier relationships with their fellow humans.

But when I’ve read ethnographies of peoples without metal or ceramic pots, or archeological accounts, stone soup means something different, because a standard method of cooking is putting fire heated hot stones into a water tightly woven basket with raw food and water, or into natural and human enhanced communal stone cauldrons such as those found in rock formations on the Irish shoreline.

Is it conceivable that the parable of the stone soup evolved from the traditional practice of cooking with heated stones, and perpetual broths are a survival of communal soup pots maintained by small bands of mostly closely related people?
posted by jamjam at 3:08 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]