The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup
Comments
ilamont
pphysch
Cool. The pot is surprisingly small. Is the sauce in it highly concentrated or something?
ilamont
Yes, 滷肉 ("braised meat") is highly concentrated. You can't eat the sauce by itself like a stew, it would be too rich. So it's usually served on white rice or in this case noodles.
The ingredients are typically finely minced fatty pork with soy sauce and strong flavorings like dried mushroom, garlic, star anise, and a fermented bean sauce that's super salty. Plus other ingredients that make the taste unique to the chef or shop.
sowbug
By the way, if you haven't tried 滷肉飯 (lǔròu fàn, or braised pork with rice), you should. You can't walk more than a block in Taipei without finding it, but I've seen it only once in the US.
kccqzy
You need to come to NYC. They are quite common.
codybontecou
... and now I'm hungry. I'd love to try this.
abeppu
I think there is an optimization question buried here. In tech lots of people have experience with A/B tests, which function on the assumption that you have a stream of fresh sessions which are independent. Multi-armed bandits, Thompson sampling etc give us frameworks for generalizing this towards finding the best option among a finite set of candidates, if goodness is fixed over time. This is kinda the opposite end of a spectrum: you get to run one policy at a time and the whole premise is that goodness is heavily state dependent. How do you decide whether to keep going with your current policy vs when to start over with another?
Sure, the soup is good ... but is it the best they could have after 52 years? By committing to maintaining one pot for so long, they pay the opportunity cost of not being able to explore related long-lived methods. If there's a different recipe that surpasses this one after only one year of simmering, they'll never find it.
At first I thought this might be related to the secretary problem, but of course if after 50 years of recipe B, you have the option of switching back to recipe A if it's better.
nonethewiser
I see no reason to believe the quality could be improved over a more normal cook period. Even super long boils like tonkotsu can be achieved by other means (pressure). IMO its more of a gimmick and frankly kinda gross.
abeppu
I mean, I don't want to eat it either. But the point of generalizing the optimization framework is that it applies to other situations with the same shape.
Maybe related questions:
- if you have the resources to run just one online learning model, but can't stash/restore state to just continue a prior model where you left off, how do you find the best online-learned model?
- you have space in your garden for only one large fruit tree. You have an heirloom apple tree currently and it produces decent but not amazing fruit. How do you choose whether to replace with something else, given that a replacement may take years to develop the root system needed to be really productive?
- (more loosely) you're in career track X and have advanced over years, the work is ok but could be better. How should you decide whether to retrain as something different?
x______________
One of the speculations as to how life was created on this planet: stable environments hosting hydrothermal vents over long periods of time.
Could perpetual stews over decades act in the same manner?
actionfromafar
Maybe! Let's try it in a sterile environment, a few million of such stews over a few millions of years.
bbkane
You first!
lithocarpus
I've gone without a fridge for 8 years now and do something kind of like this usually - I'll cook a pot of food and then steam or boil it again after ~24 hours to reset the clock on it rotting. It's handy for things like eating a whole chicken or other large soup. I switch between being home and on the road a lot so my pot just comes with me and can be re-cooked on my car stove or my home stove. I tend to cook or re-heat once a day. Ideally I'd rather be sharing freshly prepared food with other people every meal and I do that when I can, but this works for when I'm feeding myself alone - cheaper and easier than any other approach.
nonethewiser
The bacteria is still there, its just dead. Along with all of its waste. Leaving soup at room temperature over night is crazy. Its usually the biggest food borne illness vector in restaurants so they usually boil then move straight to cooling.
Ive learned leaving soup out and reboiling is fairly common in some cultures which is unfortunate. Bacteria rapidly multiplies at room temperature around the world (well, maybe not antarctica).
vinceguidry
You'd be amazed at just how much tolerance human guts can develop for this kind of thing. I recall reading about a hunter-gatherer tribe the discoverer ran across just going to town on horribly rotten carrion. The more rotten the better.
xyzzy_plugh
If your gut is adjusted it can work, sure, but there is still latent risk -- your body is fighting for your survival constantly.
If your immune system becomes suppressed or you become injured, then you're skating on very thin ice.
We've known this for a very long time. There's a reason refrigerators are popular.
throwaway27448
> Leaving soup at room temperature over night is crazy.
And yet, this was common before the electric fridge. I've lived without a fridge for years and the amount of food I ate after being left out overnight would give americans a stroke.
ars
Resetting it will kill bacteria, certainly. But there are a number of heat-stable toxins that once created will not be destroyed that way.
I guess you've been doing this for a while, and presumably it's been working, plus I know that historically this is how people lived. But be aware it's not risk free.
A suggestion: A pressure cooker - not for the pressure, but because they can be sealed. Heat the food, then let it cool without opening it. Kind of a less secure form of canning.
julianlam
Forever soup isn't new, of course.
Poor families do it to cheaply make long lasting meals.
My late maternal grandmother used to have a pot of forever soup on the stove, and she would put whatever she had on hand in.
Spare ribs, check. Leftover veg, check. McDonalds fries, gross, but check.
zdragnar
One of my grandfather's favorite jokes whenever we visited was to yell across the house that guests had arrived, and to add some more water to the soup.
Of course, my grandmother was a farmer all her life before I was born, so she was always making far too much food (nobody ever left hungry was a mark of pride) but it took some growing up before I really contemplated the kind of life that joke would have come from.
And yes, always had soup going.
PyWoody
It wasn't until college did I realize that "fill up on water" wasn't a normal response to a kid who says they're hungry.
hintymad
Wouldn't toxics like nitrites accumulate over the years? Also, I'd assume the purpose of perpetual soup is to concentrate the aroma and the taste, but is there going to be a diminishing return?
cultofmetatron
I'm currently in bangkok atm. where can I go try this soup?
Alien1Being
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Restaurant_Review-g293916-d87...
Actual customer reviews are less gushing than the WSJ article....
embedding-shape
Long time since reviews on the internet mattered one squat. Reviews can be because of everything from a jealus competitor, the platform asking the restaurant to pay to unblock favorable reviews/remove unfavorable ones, doing the opposite when you don't pay, or simple a bunch of people who basically fill the web with junk.
More often than not I have a great experience in restaurants with 2-3 out of 5 in ratings, and shit experiences with restaurants with 4-5/5 ratings, I've simply stopped reading reviews at all, anything with numbers on the internet is basically fuddled with nowadays.
voakbasda
I discovers this 10 years ago with Yelp. I refused to pay, but still kept an account linked to Faceboook. When I deleted that account, apparently Yelp knew that and released some old negative reviews that previously had been hidden. One review was filled with lies, and I never had the chance to see it (much less respond to it) when I still had the account. That was the day that I learned what legal online extortion looks like.
x______________
When publishing, it's always important to get a fresh viewpoint from an unrelated account/device to ensure nothing looks amiss!
flir
City-level reddit subs have a fair idea where to avoid, I find.
tedeh
Its on Ekkamai rd, "Wattana Panich"
rkozik1989
Is this like how Italian families sometimes a forever pot of tomato sauce continuously on a low heat on their stoves?
pif
This Italian here has never heard nothing like that. Tomato sauce can be simmered for several hours, but there is no refill.
ch4s3
I've never heard of anyone doing this among any Italian Americans I know. Is this something you've seen first hand?
guessmyname
Why Italian Americans instead of just normal Italian? Aren’t Italian Americans just regular Italians? Or are you asking about the customs of Americanized Italian families or people who were born and raised in America but with Italian ancestry?
ch4s3
Because those are the Italians I have experience with, and the Italian Sugo al pomodoro isn't to my knowledge ever cooked for hours. The slow cooked variety in Italy is the ragù which is cooked up to 4 hours. If you cook any tomato sauce much beyond 4 hours you lose the actual tomato flavor[1]. So I sincerely doubt forever tomato sauce is a real thing.
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-slow-cooked-italian-ame...
> Aren’t Italian Americans just regular Italians
No. The term generally refers to a groups of people descended from Italian immigrants who formed their own culture in America that blended regional Italian languages and cuisines with local American ingredients, language and customs. The big pot of red sauce in question doesn't exist in Italy, it's an invention of early 20th century Italian immigrants to the US.
BenjiWiebe
Probably because they don't know any Italians (in Italy), just Italian Americans.
ch4s3
I do or have, but they aren't tomato sauce Italians if that makes sense.
madcaptenor
I am an Italian-American and would presume to speak for Italian-American foodways but not the foodways of Italians living in Italy.
toast0
Italian-american cuisine is quite distinct from Italian cuisine (which is really a lot of regional cuisines with a shared language and some shared staples)
ButlerianJihad
Are you a non-American?
It is typically the custom of Americans to hyphenate our ethnicity and claim descent from some European country or another. (Or African or Asian, or wherever the family had migrated from.)
Indeed, an Italian-American is not a "regular Italian" because they enjoy neither citizenship nor residence in that sovereign territory. Italian-American cuisine is also unique, and distinct from "regular Italian" cuisine. Sure, they draw a lot of ideas from the Old Country, but c'mon: tomatoes originated in the Americas!
I could be known as an "Irish-American" but really, I was adopted by a non-Irish family, and the Irish clergy/religious who educated me were fully inculturated into the United States, so we learned a patriotism for our homeland, along with a very American faith and culture, and not a futile nostalgia for some long-lost European territory. There was not a trace of Celtic spirituality or "Irish Republican rebellion" taught to me or my classmates.
I do appreciate Irish culture from afar, and I enjoy the St. Patrick's Day festivities that are not drunken orgies, but I am constantly reminded that I was never "Irish" and I do not derive my identity from hyphenating such things.
tuvix
Haven’t heard of forever sauce but my family makes sauce by cooking it pretty much all day. If we ate it every day then yeah we might as well keep a pot on the stove all the time
ch4s3
If you cook the tomato too long you lose the tomato flavor[1]. My Italian-American neighborhood has a sauce competition at the community center every year, and the winners never do an all day cook.
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-slow-cooked-italian-ame...
tuvix
Interesting! I’ll have to try a cooking the recipe for shorter. I am a bit skeptical since my family’s sauce is the best in the world already :)
ch4s3
They're all good sauces.
bescob_ar
I've seen this done for a few years (2-3?) but only in a crockpot sized container, honestly still tasted alright. Not sure I'd have a full bowl of stew 52 but seems [great] for fermenty-salty dipping sauce like saltwater.
spelk
This was something I was genuinely excited to try while in Bangkok, took a Grab across town to make it happen, but it was it is honestly not good, the Google reviews seem to coincide with the consensus that while the concept is cool, the execution isn't and it tastes very meh.
I do wonder if there’s some pluralistic ignorance going on, where travelers convince themselves it must be amazing because everyone else seems to think so.
It didn't give off the vibe of years of collected flavors; it was a thin broth and it didn't taste like much else other than beef broth from a fancy instant noodle packet and a ton of MSG (and to be clear, I'm normally a proponent of MSG but it genuinely was overdone here).
Maybe it really is just the volume that they're going through that's affecting the taste and composition, because they were doing decent business, but this was the biggest disappointment on my short visit to Bangkok.
abdullahkhalids
I wouldn't expect this to be better tasting than a regular soup/stew. If you keep eating it, new stuff added today has been almost completely consumed in a week.
I would eat it out of respect for the craft and the values that are being preserved.
Brendinooo
Seems reasonable to conclude that people might do it to say that they did it, for the same sort of reasons why one might get a warm pint in a run-down, cramped, 500-year-old pub instead of a cold pint at a newly-opened, comfortable pub
manoDev
The grime around the pot convinced me they’re telling the truth about 52 years :)
stronglikedan
> The grime
Oh, you mean the flavoring!
feverzsj
*52 years concentrated heavy metal soup.
polishdude20
Why concentrated?
andrewstuart
Disgusting.
Many years ago I saw a Japanese TV program that explored the food of southern Taiwan and one of the stops was a restaurant that had a 106-year old vat of broth. It was tall and narrow and had a giant hump of crust on one side.
If it's still open, it would be going for 130+ years at this point.
ETA: Found it. Established 1895, the year Taiwan was annexed by Japan. It's not soup, it's a meat sauce (滷肉) used on a noodle dish. Scroll down to the middle of the page, which shows the chef with the pot in front of him.
https://ksdelicacy.pixnet.net/blog/posts/5067270713