Stone Soup is an old folk story in which hungry strangers persuade local people of a town to give them food. It is usually told as a lesson in cooperation, especially amid scarcity. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as button soup, wood soup, nail soup, and axe soup. In the Aarne-Thompson folktale classification system it is type 1548.[1]
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A traveller arrives in a village, with few possessions save a large cooking pot. When she begs for food, each of the villagers says no. Resigning herself, she fills the pot with water, places it over a fire in the village square, and drops a large stone into it. When one of the villagers asks what she is doing, she says "I'm making stone soup." She tastes it and says "Mmmmm, it's almost perfect. It just needs some salt." The villager runs home for some salt, and it gets added to the soup. When another villager asks what's happening, the traveller says "Our soup is almost ready. It just needs some carrots." This villager runs home for some carrots. As more and more villagers are attracted to the events, they are each willing to add to the soup. A delicious and nourishing pot of soup is prepared, and enjoyed by all.
In the French and Hungarian versions of the tale, the travellers are soldiers: three returning home from the Napoleonic Wars play the role in the former, and a single, starving one, who encounters several hardships on his journey back to his homeland, is depicted in the latter.
In the Portuguese tradition, the traveller is a monk and the story takes place around Almeirim, Portugal. Nowadays many restaurants in Almeirim serve stone soup, or sopa de pedra.
The story is most commonly 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 will make nail soup for the both of them if she would 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. In Russian tradition a soldier eats axe kasha (Каша из топора).
U.S. Army General George S. Patton, Jr. referred to the "rock soup method" of acquiring resources for attacks in the face of official disapproval by his superiors for offensive operations. In the military context, he sent units forward ostensibly on reconnaissance missions, to later reinforce them when resistance was met and eventually turned small scale probes into all out attacks; he notably did this during the Battle of Sicily in the advance on Palermo and again in the campaign in northwest Europe, notably near Metz when his 3rd US Army was officially halted during Operation Market Garden.[2]