Story
According to the story, some travellers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an
empty pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores
with the hungry travellers. The travellers fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it,
and place it over a fire in the village square. One of the villagers becomes curious and
asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making "stone soup", which
tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which
they are missing. The villager doesn't mind parting with just a little bit to help them out,
so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the
travellers again mention their stone soup which hasn't reached its full potential yet. The
villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers
walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup
is enjoyed by all. The stone may or may not be reused in the next soup, and fortunately is
not eaten.
This fable can be thought of as "The Emperor's New Clothes" in reverse, where nothing
is revealed to be something, after all. The original stone was only a pretext to start the
villagers sharing in a way that they would not have considered without the catalyst of the
"stone soup" that they thought they were improving. While many stone soup recipes and
circumstances quite literally use an actual stone, followers of this tradition obviously use
a figurative stone.
According to Portuguese tradition, the events described in the "stone soup" tale took
place around Almeirim, Portugal. Nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to find a restaurant in
Almeirim which doesn't serve stone soup ("sopa de pedra").
A somewhat "new" tradition, growing in popularity in cases where stone soup is made
and served among people who gather semi-regularly, is the idea that the person whose
portion contains the stone (in recipes in which a real stone is used) will be responsible for
starting the pot at the next gathering.
The story is also known as Nail soup in Scandinavian and Northern European countries.
In these versions, the main character is typically a tramp looking for food and lodgings,
who convinces an old woman that he'll make nail soup for the both of them if she'd just
add a few ingredients for the garnish. In Eastern Europe the variation of the story (having
more in common with the Northern European rendition) is called Axe Soup, with an axe
being the catalyst.
[edit] Interpretation and lessons
1. We can all work together, co-operate and end up better off.
2. If you want to get people to do something, don't tell them how desperately they
are needed. Don't try to appeal to their sympathy and kindness. Instead, create the
impression that you are giving them the opportunity to be part of your success.
[edit] Uses in popular culture
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Stone Soup is the name of a literary magazine for children 8-13.
An episode of Land of the Lost is titled "Stone Soup", and features a storyline
making use of this fable.
An episode of Little House on the Prairie also makes use of the fable in its
storyline.
The story was adapted for an episode of Jim Henson's The Storyteller written by
Anthony Minghella, entitled "A Story Short".
An affiliation of cooperative houses in Chicago, founded in 1997, has the name
Stone soup cooperative.
The free Fractint software was written by the "Stone Soup Group", named after
this fable. Copyleft endeavours, including the GNU project and Wikipedia, can
also be regarded as embodying the stone soup principle.
Stone Soupercomputer, a very powerful supercomputer cluster, is made up of
discarded desktops.
Stone Soup is the name of a group of story tellers on the Barbican, Plymouth.
An episode of Will and Grace has the title characters putting on a children's play
of the story.
"The Wonderful Soup Stone" is a song by Dr. Hook, about children growing up
poor and imagining that water and potatoes tasting like a gourmet soup, because
of a soup stone.
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master talks about Stone soup
as a method using incremental deceptions to improve things for everyone.
There was a Disney comic story involving Gyro Gearloose trying to cook a Stone
soup with concentrated stone juice.