Soup
12 Aug 2019Today’s prompt: “Making soup”
“Hello and well met!” the stranger hailed the first woman he saw in town.
“Hello yourself,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. Strangers weren’t common in Utgard.
“I don’t suppose you have a soup pot and a ladle I could borrow? And some bowls? I just need to make myself some dinner, and then I’ll be out of your hair. And for lending me the cookware, I’d be happy to let you and your family have some of the soup.”
“What kind of soup?”
“Stone soup.” The stranger fished a stone out of his pocket, the size of a small boulder.
“Stone soup? Sounds shitty.”
“I assure you, my dear, this is no ordinary stone. It’s composed of flavor crystals. Simply simmer it in a large pot of water for a few hours, and the result is an utterly divine consommé.”
The woman looked at him skeptically, then shrugged. “Sure, whatever. You can build a fire pit over here.”
“Thank you, my dear,” the stranger said.
“Stop calling me your dear,” the woman said, turning toward her house.
“What can I call you?” the stranger asked.
“Ymelda,” Ymelda said, lugging a soup pot the diameter of a school bus outside.
“Ymelda. It suits you. A lovely name for a lovely woman.”
“You can stop flirting. I’m married.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying.” The stranger built a fire, filled the pot with water, brought it to a boil, and dropped in the stone.
“Now what?”
“Now we wait and let the flavor crystals do their thing.”
“And the stone will flavor the soup? All by itself?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’d be better with some potatoes. Just for the texture. The stone takes care of the flavor and the nutritional value, but a lot of people think stone soup tastes better with potatoes, and who am I to argue?”
“Uh huh.”
“I don’t suppose you have any?”
“Potatoes?”
“Yeah.”
“I can spare a few.” Ymelda went into her house, scrubbed and diced some potatoes, and brought them out, scraping them from the cutting board into the pot.
Ymelda’s next door neighbor stepped outside to hang some damp laundry, and wandered over to the fire. “Hey, Ymelda.”
“Hey, Yolanda.”
“What’s cooking?”
“Stone soup,” the stranger said.
“Stone soup?” Yolanda said.
“Indeed. You see, I have a magical stone consisting of flavor crystals that, when simmered in a pot of water–”
“Yeah, it’s a bunch of bullshit,” Ymelda interrupted. “But we might as well make some soup. You got any carrots?”
“We had a bumper crop of them last year.”
“Bring ‘em over.”
And so it went. More neighbors gathered around, each contributing another ingredient – onions, parsnips, a few jars of stewed tomatoes, until half the admittedly sparsely populated town was crowded around the soup pot, inhaling the aroma.
Ymelda tasted the broth. “It’d be better with a little meat,” she said.
“Ah!” said Rory from three houses down. “I have just the thing. I caught a human sneaking into my place last night.”
“Is it still raw? Normally I’d want to boil human until it’s practically falling off the bone, but the potatoes are already pretty soft.”
“Not to worry, it’s already roasted.” Rory trotted off to his house and returned with your charred carcass. He dropped it into the pot.
“Man, that’s going to be some good soup,” Yolanda said.