The Forever Soup

In my family, we have this cauldron of soup, but it's not just any soup. It's a soup we had in our family for generations. All started with my great-great-great-great... let's just say my ancestor. At a time of great famine, she made a soup. It started with only water, as it was the easiest thing to get for her at the time, but every time she got her hands on any kind of ingredients, she would put it in the soup. Her three children were still young at that time and the soup would be the only meal they could eat. So she made sure the soup would never go bad and continuously feed it, so it could always feed her family. She added water every day and added every thing she could find. Sometimes, it would be roots, sometimes it would be fruits. Out of habit, she found a few rabbits. The more she added to it and ate part of it, the more the soup would evolve, and she never let it rot.

She did that every day even after the famine was over. She didn't want to take any chances if once again food were to be lacking. When her children went to leave her house, she gave each of them a cauldron of soup. That way, she said, if you take good care of your soup, it will take good care of you. And so, her child, the one who was my ancestor, listen to her words and took good care of their soup, doing the same thing their mother did. And they never went hungry even in times of hardship. To their turns, they gave it to their children, who did the same and gave it to their children, who did the same and so on and so on. It was said that everyone who disrespected the soup got cursed and fell of hunger after a few years. It was most likely a myth, but I still loved that story as a kid and really wanted to take care of the soup when my turn would come.

It was given to my mother after a few generations. She too did the same and the soup's tastes would change every day. Sometimes it would be delicious, sometimes it would be disgusting. It would be salty or sweet, sour or bitter. Sometimes colorful, sometimes clear. Sometimes it was well-cooked, sometimes it was burned. But she would always make her next soup with the previous one as a base. Nowadays, we would only eat the soup once a day, but it was the main meals of my ancestors. It was now time for me and my siblings to receive the gift of the soup. I was so excited and accepted it with joy. It's our tradition, and it's a wonderful idea to prepare for an uncertain future and prevent ourselves from starve in times of need.

My sister refused to take it. She recently turned vegetarian and did not like the fact that the soup had non-negligible traces of meat in it. She remembered all the meat soups we had as children and knew our mother still put meat in it from time to time. She rejected the soup. Our mother understood she smiled and decided to froze her part just in case she would change her mind one day. It would definitely lose some of its value, but it would still be there for her to bring it back to life and nourish it.

My brother took the soup and threw it in the garden. He said it would be of better use as fertilizer for the soil. He did not only reject it, he disrespected our tradition. He continued by saying he would not engage in the continuation of our culinary culture as it was useless and stupid, while adding that it was disgusting to eat the same soup over and over, and we didn't have to do that nowadays, since food was everywhere. There would be no famine, not in his lifetime, he affirmed. That's what he thought, not knowing how wrong he was. A few years past and came the worst food crisis of all time. My family and I did not suffer that much as we would always have soup if we were hungry.

When it happened, my sister came to me asking for food first. I told her, that I couldn't spare anything, but a bowl of soup, and the soup had meat in it. She said her choice of being vegetarian wasn't worth to pay it with her life. I told her that if she thinks that way, she should take back her part of soup that our mother probably still had. I added that it was the use she made of the soup that would make it hers and after a few years there would barely be any meat residue left. So she went and asked for her part, our mother effectively had kept it all those years, and she gave it to her.

A few months later, my brother came to me as well. He just came back from our mother's house, trying to claim our sister's part of soup. She said it wasn't his, and she had already given it to the one who owned it. If he really wanted the soup he shouldn't have mocked it and threw it away when it was given to him. Then he came to me asking for food. I told him I could only spare one bowl of soup and that's all he would get. He said he would take anything if it meant not starving right now. I said if that's what he thought, I could also give him the scraps of food we wanted to keep and use as compost for our garden. His eyes darkened. He took the bowl and the scraps of food and left.