Stone Soup

Life tastes better together

We didn't realize the bicycle tour was also a street food tour, but there we were again, staring down yet another plate of food we didn't recognize. We knew dinner and bottled water were included, and the poster on the hostel wall said something vague about snacks, but we hadn't expected this many stops. No complaints; it was awesome, just unexpected. And filling.

Promising that we are not picky eaters, we had given our local guide, a smiley Thai man named Sugar, complete control over what we sampled.

He seemed to relish in the freedom to choose for us, and we stopped our bikes every few minutes to try something that caught his eye. Fortunately, he wasn't sadistic about it, and seemed to find pleasure in our enjoyment of each new dish.

Everything we tried was delicious and priced so low, I thought to myself, I might never cook if I lived here.

As if he could read my mind, Sugar stated matter-of-factly:

“In Thailand, cooking at home only middle class and rich. Cooking too expensive for poor people.” He waved his hand toward the various street hawkers nearby selling 10 baht (28 cents USD) skewers of meat or mysterious packages wrapped in banana leaves and secured with toothpicks, 20 baht steaming bowls of soup, 30 baht complete meals—each dish wrapped separately in a securely fastened plastic bag to take home and combine in your own bowl. With the current exchange rate, nothing was more than a dollar. “This how poor people eat.”

“Really?” I slurped the translucent glass noodles from the clutches of my chopsticks. “Every day?”

“Too many things buy for cooking.” He cocked his head to one side, as if remembering something. There was apparently one exception to the rule. “Poor people only cooking when eat together with friends or family. Everyone bring something small and make something big."

Like stone soup.

My mind flashed to the European folk tale, retold a dozen different ways over the centuries. The basics are always the same. A weary and hungry traveler enters a village. He carries a large cooking pot, but has no money to buy any food. Fortunately, he is clever.

He builds a fire and fills his pot with water and a simple stone (or button, or nail, or even axe-head, depending on the tradition), bringing it slowly to a gentle boil. As curious villagers pass by and inquire, he informs them that he is making a delicious, magical soup. There will be plenty to share, but he is still lacking a few ingredients to really take it to the next level.

One by one, the villagers rush home to find something special to contribute. Before long, a truly delicious broth is simmering, chock full of tasty tidbits and savory spices. Everyone enjoys the meal and leaves satisfied.

I did my best to relay the old fable in simple terms to Sugar, whose English was sufficient to show tourists around the backstreets and alleys of Bangkok, but far from complete. It was only the three of us out for the evening of biking and eating.

His face lit up as he grasped the story and understood the significance. “Yes! Stone soup. Stone soup.” He pronounced the unfamiliar words slowly, twisting them around in his mouth as if he were tasting them. “I like this story.” His eyes sparkled under the bright lights of the street hawkers’ booths and he nodded to no one in particular, then muttered, “I will remember this story. Stone soup.”

Although our evening with Sugar was nearly a week ago, my mind keeps going back to the fact that the poor in Thailand do not cook for themselves unless it is a collaborative effort between many people, each contributing something small.

How would our lives be different if we intentionally relied on each other to contribute toward the good of the community? It is a concept our eldest, Naomi, who threads that fine line between the Millennials and Gen-Z, has been exploring in recent years—living in intentional community where everyone contributes voluntarily from their strengths and accepts help to accommodate for their weaknesses or shortcomings.

In some ways, collaborating limits individual freedom. Surely not everyone who eats stone soup appreciates every ingredient that gets added by someone else. Some wish it were a little spicier. Some think it is too zippy already. More vegetables. Thicker broth. But all go away fed, even the one who only had a spoonful of crushed red pepper flakes to contribute.

Is it worth it?

For the person who considers herself self-sufficient and already has plenty, perhaps not. For the hungry man who has only an empty cooking pot, it surely is. There is validity to the proverb “Beggars can't be choosers.”

In the early days of the Christian church, the first century after the execution and resurrection of Jesus, it is reported that the believers sold everything and threw their lots in together, seeing to it that everyone had what they needed. The ancient texts imply that many different social classes were represented in this early group of Christians. Surely, then, some contributed much, financially, and some very little. Perhaps the have-nots had other non-monetary contributions.

But at the end of the day, all had enough soup and daily bread. They even appointed a special task force to ensure that no one was being overlooked.

Although many Christians claim to long for those days, when we all so selflessly support one another, I’m not sure how well the plan would be received in the modern era—at least by the people of privilege such as myself. Considering the aforementioned proverb, because I am not a beggar, I am prone to be a chooser.

But I would like to find more areas of life where I can collaborate with others, whether artistically, gastronomically, transportationally (ok, I made that word up, but I have enjoyed sharing a cab with fellow travelers headed to the same place from time to time), social medially (yup, another invented term, but you know what I mean, right?), or otherwise.

How about you, friend? In what areas of life have you stone-souped your way around, working with others toward a common goal instead of competing for resources and rewards? Have any fun stories to share? I’d love to hear them.

Again, I’ll admit this life thing is a challenge. And the older and more experienced I get, the more I realize I don't know. I have no interest in starting over and trying again, though, so I guess I will just stumble through and do my best.

If you’d like, we can stumble through it together. I’ll put the soup on. Bring something to add to it, if you can.

Until next week,

Sherry