Stone Soup

Reese and I read Stone Soup the other night as part of our bed time routine and he just loved it.  It's a folktale that has been told in many different forms but this one features pigs.  The pigs are traveling and enter a town, hoping to find some kind strangers who will feed them.  The villagers, however, see them coming and shut their doors and windows hoping the pigs will go away.  They do not want to share their food, even though they have more than enough.  The villagers are stingy and greedy.  They have hearts of stone. That gives one of the pigs an idea. 

They ring the town bell for emergencies, calling everyone together because there is no food in town (the pigs know better of course).  The pigs begin to make stone soup to feed the town.  They heat water in a pot and put in freshly scrubbed stones.  One of the pigs tastes the soup and decides that it is good, but would be better if they could make the fancy kind with pepper, salt and herbs.  The villagers take the bait and bring those things for the soup.  The pigs use this trick with carrots, onions, milk, potatoes and meat.  The villagers bring it all willingly and declare it delicious.  They can't believe it's just made with stones and water!  The soup is shared with everyone and other goodies are also brought out to add to the meal.  Everyone has a great time and the village asks how they can ever repay them.  "Share stone soup with everyone!"  cry the pigs.

Reese has been bugging me since we first read it to make stone soup so yesterday I broke down.  I cheated and used a tortilla soup base and just added chicken, cheese, corn and squash but we added the freshly scrubbed stones first.  I happened to have some gravel in the backyard and we dug through it to find some big enough to be obvious (so we didn't accidently eat them). 

Kyle was too chicken to eat the soup for dinner but Reese and I did!  I love that books are making an impression on him.  It was totally worth all the scrubbing!