A popular trope I’ve noticed in fantasy and historical fiction is an inn with a big cauldron over the fire, bubbling away, in which the innkeeper’s wife continually adds carrots, onions, rabbits, birds, and whatever other convenient morsels are delivered, day after day, week after week. And this way there’s always food on hand that is safe to eat.
Firstly – I’m pretty sure this was a real thing, but was it really ‘endless’?
Secondly – does anyone do it now? If so, how does it taste?
Peas porridge hot
Peas porridge cold
Peas porridge in the pot
Nine days old.
Sadly, my mother did this. With a pressure cooker, not a cauldron. She would throw chicken bits and veggies into it, cook it, feed us, then the leftovers went into the fridge. Next time, she would add more chicken bits and veggies, and repeat.
It was gross. The food turned into a sort of undifferentiated mush, with bones in it. We survived, though.
One of my great-grandmothers was the innkeeper of her town’s train station. Not only would she keep the same soup boiling forever, she’d serve it boiling hot and return the leftovers to the pot…
I don’t know what did it taste like, but it’s one of the details that make me glad I never got to meet that particular bitch. Her daughter and grandson were my two worst relatives.
Never experienced an endless stew, but growing up in Fairfax Virginia there was a little diner on route 29. We used to say that the meatloaf there was the modern equivalent of a “bowl of brown”. It was said to be the final resting place of Mondays roast, which was Tuesday’s open faced sandwich and Wednesday’s chicken-fried steak. It was also said to contain the leftover hashbrowns from breakfast and any leftover vegetables throughout the week, and some did contend that they scraped the plates into it.
It was also said that that diner must be the site of a singularity, as the only pastry they ever served were “Bear Claws.”
So THAT’S what that rhyme meant? :eek:
Sounds more like Endless Ew.
Only experienced this once. A restaurant where our survey crew ate often while based in Kuala Dungun, Malaysia had a huge cauldron on the fire at all times. The cooks put meat and veg trimmings (plus nicer goodies like lotus root) in as they worked and served it as the ‘house soup’. Given that food was cheap and that many locals chose not to cook in the evening, that soup had a quick rotation time and was a serious favorite with everyone. The flavors and main ingredients changed from day to day and was always a pleasant surprise.
I could go for a big bowl of it right now (and a platter of Chilli Crabs, too)… good times, back in the day.
It’s pretty much where dishes like cassoulet (French) and begos (Polish) came from. Both are hunter’s stews. The Le Central, a French restaurant in San Francisco, claims on their website that their cassoulet has been cooking for 38 years. I’ve had it, and it was fine.
Apparently this is - or was - pretty common in Russia as well. Walter Cronkite, in his autobiography, tells of his years as a UPI stringer in Moscow in the '50’s. Food was scarce and bread lines were long, living conditions crowded, nearly every family had a big kettle of… something on the fire at all times. Each person would bring home whatever odds & ends of groceries they’d been able to pick up and it would all go in the communal pot. Beets, potatoes, wild mushrooms, carrots, cabbage figured prominently along with any kind of meat to be had (pigeons, anyone?). He said it was surprisingly tasty.
Never experienced it myself, but did see it in a novel.
S.M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire features it as “Eternal Soup”, what the one group of survivors are eating until they have the time to grow or raise a greater variety of vittles.
A restaurant here supposedly has used the same grease for deep frying hamburgers since 1912. they stain it each night and add more to it. I have not eaten one personally.
I’m sure it’s already quite stained. 
In Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain claims that the Rainbow Room had a perpetual vat of stock in the kitchen. All the bones went into it. Actually, maybe there were two, one for light and one for dark stock.
There’s a lake of stew
One of whiskey too
You paddle all around 'em
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I was turning up my nose until you mentioned Bear Claws.
Now I want one. I will have to get to Panera tomorrow.
I have, and they’re delicious.
Ewwwww! Did you READ the link? I’ve heard the same from others who worked in bakeries. The filling in bear claws is whatever leftovers are scraped up around the kitchen, with a metric ton of almond extract to mask any staleness. Ugh!
Makes me think of the plum pudding Queen Anne served to Parliament. A little pinch of it was kept, and added to the next year’s pudding. Then, once more, a bit was saved, to add to the pudding for the year after that. ad infinitum. And the pudding is still going!
The homeopathic plum pudding!
Sounds good to me. I also love bread pudding and similar types of desserts made from leftover stale bakery items. Nice not to be wasteful.
As long as they taste good, who cares?