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A perpetual stew, also known as forever soup, hunter's pot[1][2] or hunter's stew, is a pot into which whatever one can find is placed and cooked. The pot is never or rarely emptied all the way, and ingredients and liquid are replenished as necessary.[1][3] 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.[4]

Perpetual stew

Cocido montañés, a Cantabrian version of perpetual stew
Alternative names	Hunter's pot, hunter's stew
Type	Stew

Examples

Perpetual stews are speculated to have been common in medieval cuisine, often as pottage or pot-au-feu:

Bread, water or ale, and a companaticum ('that which goes with the bread') from the cauldron, the original stockpot or pot-au-feu that provided an ever-changing broth enriched daily with whatever was available. The cauldron was rarely emptied out except in preparation for the meatless weeks of Lent, so that while a hare, hen or pigeon would give it a fine, meaty flavour, the taste of salted pork or cabbage would linger for days, even weeks.

— Reay Tannahill[4]

Between August 2014 and April 2015, a New York restaurant served broth from the same perpetual stew (a master stock) for over eight months.[5][6]

A batch of pot-au-feu was claimed by one writer to be maintained as a perpetual stew in Perpignan from the 15th century until World War II, when it ran out of ingredients to keep the stew going due to the German occupation.[7]

The tradition of perpetual stew is also kept alive in some Southern and Eastern Asian countries:

Wattana Panich restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, has continued to maintain the broth from the same perpetual stew for over 48 years (as of 2022^[update]).[8]

The food industry in Japan still peruses perpetual stews, for instance in ramen (noodle dish) and oden (traditional one-pot dish): Otafuku, one of the oldest oden restaurants in Japan, has been heating up the same batch of broth every day since 1945. [9]

Ingredients

Various ingredients can be used in a perpetual stew, such as root vegetables and tubers (onion, carrot, garlic, parsnip, turnip, etc.) and various meats and game meats.[3][10]

In popular culture

William Gibson references a perpetual stew served on the Bridge in his novel Idoru.[11]

In A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, Arya eats from a perpetual stew, into which she contributes a pigeon, while in the slums of Kings Landing.

In the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the player can find pots of perpetual stew scattered around the map.

See also

References

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