There's a rock soup here in Mexico called "sopa de piedra de oaxaca" but here the idea of adding rocks is that they are part of the cooking, not necessarily of the ingredients. The rocks are heated up enough to make the broth boil once they are added into the rest of the soup. The plate is served still boiling with the rocks sticking out in the middle, supposedly giving it flavour and helping the broth stay warm.
We learned how to make "stone soup" from an 1812 battlefield reenactment. I always thought it was crazy they added rocks for "flavour" but here we are...
yeah this, regardless of if about baking or anything else (cells in the human body that die and get replaced and other examples), is a question humankind has been asking for eons. It's referred to philosophically as "the Ship of Theseus", wherein a boat's parts are replaced one by one over time, and the question arises; is it still the same boat at the end, if all parts were changed completely, and at what point is it no longer the same boat? my guess is by technicality, at 51% changed material.
I remember a long while back, there were various gum companies saying that “chewing gum cleans your teeth and helps prevent cavities” and they stopped advertising that so id love a food theory that actually test how well gum cleans your teeth
It doesn’t. It’s why they stopped. The way to get rid of plaque is through abrasion. This is why the dentist has that vibrating drill and not sellotape.
@eomoran yeah that’s true but it could have effects with cleanliness and smell. Maybe a super strong gum could, theoretically clean your teeth? I’d actually love to see this as an episode!!
@@coltenhunter2000And I believe the sugar substitute in sugar free gum also prevents cavities because they can't eat it or something, I'm not sure. What I do know is that chewing gum helps your jaw and ear pressure
I think another factor that helps this dish being seeked out is the fact that you can get a mouthful of flavor, without the hassle of digesting a full plate of food
I actually remember in in elementary school my teacher taught us how to make stone soup. First and main ingredient was stone. Followed whatever little seasonings were at hand. She told us a story about the soup but I forgot the story but could never forget being given a bowl with thin liquid and a couple of stones.
I went out to eat with my coworkers today and I saw that the restaurant offers ladies night on Thursdays with discounted drinks/food items. I know many restaurants do this sort of deal for different categories as well. It would be cool if you can do a food theory about the origins of “ladies nights” at restaurants! Kinda got me curious!!
I can't speak for EVERY place, but the origin would have been something like bars. Men would go there looking to meet women, but women wouldn't go there because there was nothing but men looking for women there; so the ratio was terrible. By offering ladies' nights, they give an incentive for women to visit the establishment. At restaurants, it's offering an incentive for a group of people to visit a place as opposed to any other place. If Thursday is Ladies' Night at Applebee's, then on Thursday a woman is more likely to visit Applebee's than all the other places that don't offer a discount, AND they're likely to bring their friends, increasing business overall.
the thing about it being a famine food is true, we also got tons of other regional famine food variations such as smectite powder, which is basically a medical-use powder/dirt historically used to feed the masses during famines. theres also a dish that involves cooking an egg by mixing it with burning alcohol. this aforementioned dish has now evolved to be a side-dish to be paired with strong alcohol, just like the rocks (side dishes for alcohol are legit considered a field of study and a major part of culture)
The detail that Matpat missed, explained on certain other China-explaining channels, is that the original reason this was posted to tiktok is a side-product of China's "laying flat" movement in which its young people are increasingly giving up on China having any future. It isn't that they're showing off this "famine food" because it is trendy, it's because they're making the statement that China is regressing BACK to the time of mass-famine and it will be them having to resort to such measures.
THANK YOU! and HUGEE respect for all the theorist team for actually doing their research and doesn't making fun of it for being a poverty food, I saw too much people mocking this dish and said such horrendous stuff about it (it's either racist slurs or straight up mocking poor people) :/ sorry if my english is bad it wasn't my mother tongue, greetings from asia!
note of advise: no need to say sorry if you english is bad, because it's better english than all my friends (and mine) can do, i am a born english man so trust me, you have good english
Actually, my mom has made bread for years both before and after the pandemic! She doesn’t make it that often, but around Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, she makes amazing cinnamon rolls! Those cinnamon rolls are a brioche, a type of enriched dough (baking nerd code for “We added eggs to this”) with tangzhong, a Japanese technique for cooking the flour beforehand to make the bread fluffier. Sometimes, she also makes pizza/calzones/Stromboli with homemade crust, although again, this is a special treat and not super common. But it does happen!
Gnocchi could be considered "famine food" I think, it was created by peasants in Italy, it's made out of basically just potatoes, and flour, and was combined, originally, with simple tomatoes sauces. Not it can go for like $40 in high-end Italian restaurants.
If you have potatoes, flour, and tomatoes, you're not in a famine. Those are very conventional foods and putting them together to make a new dish isn't remarkable.
Problem is that by the time the humble potatoes reached Italy's shore's the major famines of Italian history were mostly in the past. people like to think Italy had tomatoes and Ireland Potatoes for a real long time but no, not until the America's were settled and the seeds for those foods had time to make it back across the Atlantic.
IIRC lobster was considered so bad in the early 19th century that a court ruled that serving it to prisoners more than twice a week was an 8th Amendment violation
Found it😁 Stone Soup is a European folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys, and exists as a moral regarding the value of sharing. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as axe soup, button soup, nail soup, and wood soup.Wikipedia
Considering the fact that sawdust was a food additive during the industrial revolution, I doubt that wood soup would've been considered anything unusual
Here in Portugal, we have a soup called: "sopa da pedra", wich can translate to something like: "rock's soup". It's basically a soup with a big rock inside to bring an extra flavour.
@@tyhqo7654 Se acreditas em tudo o que te dizem, força. Talvez durante uns anos se tenha feito assim, mas, há imenso tempo que nao se mete pedra nenhuma na sopa da pedra.
I can actually see this being adapted into a more edible varient, like using a stone-like ingredient that’s safe to ingest, or maybe a sort of dessert varient, that uses edible rock candy, and while isn’t stir-fried, could be dressed up to look like it is.
@@pigeon1923 That misses the point of why people try this rock dish. For the (cheap) sea favor or novelty. Tho you can just use seaweed for the sea favor. Seaweed is abundant.
@@user-gu9yq5sj7c true, but you wouldn't get the same experience/texture with just seaweed. You could do clams or mussels with seaweed in this stir-fry. You've got the hard shells that you can slurp on, plenty of sea flavour and you can also eat it. Sounds like a win win.
My great grandma had a stone that was carved out to look like a fish. It was put into soup pots and the idea was that it had stored the seasoning much like a good cast iron pan is never truly cleaned. My mom told me about the story of stone soup after I asked about the weird "fish" at the bottom of the pot
Potatoes were first cultivated by the Quechua people during famines. They were previously not eaten due to being poisonous and bitter, but they figured out boiling them made the poison and taste go away. Then they really liked them and began to make all sorts of varieties through selective breeding
I mean, it's digestible. I used to say Chinese people would anything they can chew but I guess this video proved me wrong. They will literally eat anything.
then Europeans mess up with them and then also keep GMO-ing(it's not that bad, ppl) the potato, and now potato is like.. one of the most common food of Europeans.. XD and by "European", it's also the majority of AMERICAN POPULATION, U WEIRD AMERICANS! and by "Americans", it's YOU, PEOPLE FROM CANADA TO ARGENTINA/CHILE
Reminds me of the story called "stone soup". One person puts stones in a cauldron filled with boiling water, pretends it tastes amazing. One by one the villagers, investigate and end up wanting soup. So they each bring an ingredient to extend the soup. By the end of the story the cauldron is filled with onions, potatoes, meat, ect....and a few stones.
This reminds me of making “stone soup” in my first grade class. We started a “broth” with a rock, and everyone brought ingredients from home to add to it. My mom volunteered in my classroom a lot, so she came in that day with some elk meat that she and my dad recently got from bow hunting that season. My best friend is a kindergarten teacher, and they still make stone soup in her class every year. Such a cool activity for the kiddos!
Water pie is one of my favorite famine foods. Although it wasn't exactly a solution to literally starving it was made popular during a time period when people had a hard time affording more expensive ingredients.
I still make bread after the pandemic. Just mix your flour water and sourdough starter or very small amount of dry yeast and leave it on a counter while you go to work when you get back it's probably ready to cook. It will at least be done by dinner, usually takes 8-14h depending on the temp of the room. IK there are techniques and stuff, but the bread taste fantastic with no kneading and
@@wanahmadamsyarzafrie8080 I mean, it requires electricity, an oven, oil, baking sheet, sourdough, flour, a trip to the grocer and lots of time when you can skip all of those steps and just get it from the bakery shop but to each their own, I guess
@@ViolentCabbage-ym7ko funny you mention a trip to the grocer, when you have to make a trip to the bakery every time unless you happen to have a bakery in your kitchen
I can sort of see why you would add rocks to the cooking process to imbue flavor to the food, but it is different to be sucking directly on the rocks themselves. We do it all the time with plants like bay leaves that are supposed to be removed from the broth before dishing up, for example.
There's also a traditional dish in Portugal, literally called "sopa da pedra" (rock soup). The story was that there was a poor man who didn't have anything to eat so he went to someone's house and asked if he could get some boiling water so that he could make that rock soup. The homeowner was obviously surprised so he said yes. Not gonna go into detail, but basically the poor man often said "rock soup is better with some potatoes" and thus the homeowner would get tricked into giving a lot of ingredients for the soup. In the end, the poor man took off the rock and went to eat a very nutritional soup :)
as a rock i can confirm people’s favourite food is rocks, i see my fellow rocks being grabbed out from the ground everyday and im glad you brought up this topic, im very scared and im living under an ant hill, i see a human coming, wish the best for me.
Reminds me of the Stone Stew fairytale about a hungry traveler who knocked on a door asking the lady for food and she said she had nothing then closed the door. The traveler then picked up a stone and knocked again saying he could make his special stone stew and she was curious as well as hungry so she let him in to see how he made the stone stew. Then he placed the stone in a pot and started heating it up but then told her it would be much better to if they added other ingredients so she did add water, carrots, potatoes, and other ingredients until the smell of stew was wafting threw the town. Other neighbors came in and were curious about the stew so the traveler said they remember having stone stew with chicken so the neighbors said ‘I have chicken’ and they brought it to add to the stew. Then the traveler said the stone stew was ready there was plenty for all but the village was disappointing that the magic stone for the stew was used then the traveler said that the stone is still intact and they realized that the stone wasn’t magic. They all realized how much stew was made together so from then on the neighbors shared what they had among themselves.
@muhelectionwasstolen7253 Guess the moral is that if you share as a Group everybody benefits (since well in the story people individualy all only had like 1 ingredient or so)
@muhelectionwasstolen7253Sharing is better than suffering alone. Everyone altogether had enough food to create nutritious meals that could feed everyone but their lack of hospitality and kindness ensured they all suffered until the traveler came
this is one of mat pat’s best food theory videos imo, i love when his theories are based around history and human geography, i personally find it really interesting
I can also see it being popular among people who are dieting as a way to get the flavor without the calories. EDIT: I am not endorsing this!! I know it is ED behavior. Regardless of it being a bad idea though, I can see it becoming popular.
Except it will do the opposite of what a diet is supposed to do. Starving yourself does the opposite, as you end up forcing the body into survival mode to store nutrients.
@@viedralavinova8266 Unless ya eat vitamins! I did it, lost 25lbs in 2 months by eating under 600 calories per day with 1hr exercise everyday, followed by a handful of vitamins :)
In defense of OP, they could just substitute, say, the carbs for rock. The veges and meat and broth or whatever could all still be there. Sauces also provide quite a bit of calories.
Please do episodes on the following: -How sustainable is a Ramen diet for college students? -Do MRE's come with a laxitive? -How long should you ideally smoke your food? -Testing if Taco Bell really gives you diarrhea
The MRE laxative is just a pervasive rumor. They say it's the gum that's in every MRE, but I always chew the gum in my MRE (because it leaves a better taste in my mouth after the rest is gone) and have never had any effect like a laxative.
I love watch every theory channel because they give a good distraction for when I don't feel like breathing anymore. It makes me learn something interesting and new. I feel like now and days I can't really feel that, but watching these videos help in a way(?)
This feels more like a snack to me than an actual meal, (now that it's not famine food) and snacks don't have to be good for you in any way, definitely could still become expensive
@@sion8 Well, I mean, it just objectively is. You would get extremely sick trying to do either of those things I mentioned. And if you have nothing else to add those fats and nutrients to, why not porous rock?
I can speak from experience as a portuguese person we have a dish called "Sopa da pedra" which means Stone's soup, and it has been popular for way over a few centuries
This just reminds me of a book I read as a kid called "stone soup" where it was literally a story of someone making a soup from nothing more than a big stone and water and cooking it for a long time
In Portugal, one dish called Sopa da Pedra used to contain a stone in it during cooking and then removed. I don't know if people still do that but I remember a lot of family members doing that when I was a kid.
We have had a lot of famine food in Norway, because of the winter. Most of it was with potatoes, fish or mushrooms though lol. They would salt the fish so it would last through the winter. I also recently found out that salmon sushi was actually made by Norway and Japan together. Norway wanted a bigger marked for our salmon so they got Japanese chefs (in Japan) and together came up with salmon sushi. Before that they didn’t use salmon on sushi
The fact that Mat brought up this show 5:03 made me sooo happy!!! I love Bizarre Foods❤❤ I watched this show all the time growing up and I really thank it for the food palette I have now and for me not being afraid to try new foods.
Hi matpat I was wondering if you could do a video on how edible metals like gold and silver are. Usually I do not share my theories because I feel I will never be noticed but I hope you will cover this on one of your videos. You and your team are amazing 👏 ❤
My family got into breadmaking when covid started and well.. I was made to switch to homemade bread with them. Now 3 years later.. I'm the only one still making homemade bread.. I just like it more than store bread.. Its worth putting in the time for the delicious bread
Fun fact! During world War 2, the Dutch famine, know to the Dutch as the Hunger winter (Hongerwinter) forced certain areas which grew a lot of flowers for commerce to eat flower bulbs. This was only in the still German occupied areas of the country. They cut off supplies to many villages redirecting everything to the German war machine.
I'm Chinese, and i was living in China for 20 years of my life. The stir fry rocks is a small regional delicacy where some people from that province may enjoy sometimes even when they have the money to buy other real food. Me, from the northern part of china, has never had it in my life, or seen people around me eat them. I'm surprised to see it in night markets! A lot of people are definitely trying it for their own curiosity, or it's an easy way for them to gain money throughout different shorts platforms. I don't think the dish will actually take off, and be offered in Chinese restaurants world wide. There are 8 big regional cooking systems in China, and they have so much deliciousness to offer.
I can see going down to the store and picking up a bag of spiced rocks like a bag of chips marketed as a healthy snack you don't swallow (like the sour workout snacks episode, or sunflower hulls)11:06
I've been wanting to see Food Theory do something that isn't based on a food in the U.S for ages now. Thank you, MatPat for including your international fans.
As a Norwegian, hearing about rocks as food is funny on a whole different level, because of folktales. More specifically "Askeladden og de gode hjelperene", where a guy literally eats rocks. As for seaweed, there's talk that it might become a large export in Norway. There's a lot of kelp and seaweed that's not only edible, but also highly nutritious and tasty.
Mat can you please do a video on the iodine conspiracy? Like why is the government so concerned with putting iodine in our salt? Will it protect us from a nuclear attack? Does it make us sick and dependent on our healthcare system? Why, why is there iodized salt! I have researched and I'm not sure myself. I would love your take on this
5:48 Incase it's not mentioned, although there's a bunch of different explanations let's face it, it's extremely likely that Frog's legs and Escargo are also a famine/seige food.
Unrelated but I very much appreciate how the subtitles are correct and have correct grammar. It's not that big of a deal for me but I know there are thousands of viewers who appreciate this.
I still make bread from scratch! And I still prefer it over bread from the store. For some reason, the sugar really stands out in a store bought loaf of bread.
Alaskan here, spruce tips are not a famine crop, but just a seasonal treat. We eat mostly the cores of young bright-green spruce tips. But, when they’re really new and tender they are fine whole raw, baked, or fried. They’re also used in tea, jelly, ice-cream, and even local soda.
There's actually a soup in Portugal called "Sopa da Pedra" (which translates to Rock Soup). It also is kind of a famine dish but it's based on a legend where a guy picked up a rock from the ground and went to different houses saying he could make rock soup in which he would ask for the rest of the ingredients while cooking to "give it more flavour". It is a pretty good and filling soup with (besides the rock for tradition) beans, various meats and veggies. I really recommend trying it if you ever get the chance!
If the rock were porous enough, it might be useful for a kind of broth-maker, something at the bottom of a bowl of ramen or pot of stew or something. Also, my family was making home-made bread, and especially home-made pizza DECADES before 2020, and simply continued to do so after it all went away.
I believe there's a korean cooking vessel that uses the same principle, a porous and heavy usually seasoned by starchy water from rice, I'm sure there's something similar that can take advantage of the phenomenon and be used for broths.
I can see this getting popular WITH the rocks as a diet "food." It gives you the flavor of a meal with a FRACTION of the calories, (there's still a little with the seasonings & oils.) BOOM! You've got something to cover your craving for flavor after having little else but protein shakes for the day. It also covers one thing we forget about meals, the SOCIAL aspect, you can have a "meal" without the calories as you catch up with friends sucking on rocks.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, there's rock stew. You put the stew's ingredients in a bowl, heat a rock, and then put the heated rock into the stew to cook it. I don't think (could be wrong) it's a famine food though, since it's supposedly something more ceremonial that you make for someone special.
God the mental idea of even a small one of those rocks even slightly touching my teeth makes my entire body shiver the same way hearing nails on a chalkboard does uuuuugh
I think another important factor why this dish might last is that most people in the developed world eat incredibly calorie dense diets and many people want to cut back. A meal or snack with lots of flavour but barely any nutrients is actually what a lot of the "diet" industry relies on
The part that bothers me most was the demonstration at 10:52 If this catches on for some reason, I'd be worried about walking on a bunch of sticky spit rocks laying everywhere. It's still 2023, get a bucket for your rocks you heathens!
Here's something I've always wondered about, after taking a shower I always feel hungry afterwards, even if I ate immediately before taking the shower; I'm not the only one that gets that feeling. So...why is that? Why do some people feel hungry after a shower?
Dentists love this food, especially the rocks mixed with veggies that make you chew veggies with a chance to lose your teeth by accidently biting a rock.
It's probably just me but I'm so thankful he was able to comment on Chinese culture without mocking it. I'm just so used to people being disrespectful nowadays, this was awesome.
In Portugal We have a dish that is "Sopa de Pedra" - Stone Soup and we also do it rocks but is just one but we also and other Ingredients like the pasta form Italy
Went to Italy last week and had this dish, one of my favorite dishes I have ever had in my life. Two days later both my mother and brother ordered the same dish. It’s a real treat
There is a Portuguese soup called "Soupa da Pedra" (Rock Soup) it's not a famine food but the story behind it is funny I would recommend y'all checking it out
i also think culture could have something to do with it. now im not a geographic expert so i dont know but i think the feeling of remembering what your ancsestors went through and updating the meal to be more edible so it can become a world phenomon makes people feel like they're doing justice to their culture by getting the word out about it
![Eminem - Fuel (feat. JID) [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t5H_CewqpKA/mqdefault.jpg)
There's a rock soup here in Mexico called "sopa de piedra de oaxaca" but here the idea of adding rocks is that they are part of the cooking, not necessarily of the ingredients. The rocks are heated up enough to make the broth boil once they are added into the rest of the soup. The plate is served still boiling with the rocks sticking out in the middle, supposedly giving it flavour and helping the broth stay warm.
So kinda like Mongolian boodog
That's a caveman technique.
So like reverse whiskey stones.
We learned how to make "stone soup" from an 1812 battlefield reenactment. I always thought it was crazy they added rocks for "flavour" but here we are...
Same in Portugal! Its just called "Sopa da Pedra" here
Food theory:
How many substitutions can you do in a recipe before it no longer makes the dish? Especially with baked goods.
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts.
@@p-__ lie
Hello Theseus' Ship!
I have a recipe called the "Ship of Theseus" for you.
yeah this, regardless of if about baking or anything else (cells in the human body that die and get replaced and other examples), is a question humankind has been asking for eons. It's referred to philosophically as "the Ship of Theseus", wherein a boat's parts are replaced one by one over time, and the question arises; is it still the same boat at the end, if all parts were changed completely, and at what point is it no longer the same boat? my guess is by technicality, at 51% changed material.
Bold of him to assume I don’t already consume rocks on a basis.
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts
Finally, someone who speaks my language
I eat 5 rocks an hour.
*basis
Rock hard D doesn't count.
I remember a long while back, there were various gum companies saying that “chewing gum cleans your teeth and helps prevent cavities” and they stopped advertising that so id love a food theory that actually test how well gum cleans your teeth
It doesn’t. It’s why they stopped. The way to get rid of plaque is through abrasion. This is why the dentist has that vibrating drill and not sellotape.
@eomoran yeah that’s true but it could have effects with cleanliness and smell. Maybe a super strong gum could, theoretically clean your teeth? I’d actually love to see this as an episode!!
Matt please
@@eomoransugar free gum has some anti-cavity properties because it increases your saliva output.
@@coltenhunter2000And I believe the sugar substitute in sugar free gum also prevents cavities because they can't eat it or something, I'm not sure.
What I do know is that chewing gum helps your jaw and ear pressure
I think another factor that helps this dish being seeked out is the fact that you can get a mouthful of flavor, without the hassle of digesting a full plate of food
Yeah which is why it’s not a famine food, it’s a drink snack
@@bowmanc.7439bro what you’re saying is the equivalent of “let them eat cake” and I can’t believe that the irony has not dawned on you yet
@@catnip202xch.I know right
@@bowmanc.7439 it is if you're too poor to afford anything more for long enough.
Exactly! It’s like a savory hard candy
I actually remember in in elementary school my teacher taught us how to make stone soup. First and main ingredient was stone. Followed whatever little seasonings were at hand. She told us a story about the soup but I forgot the story but could never forget being given a bowl with thin liquid and a couple of stones.
bro the nostalgia hit me like a truck I remember doing that in preschool
I still have the recipe
When we made stone soup, their "stone" was just small potatoes 😂. Guess they didn't want to feed a bunch of kids actual rocks.
stone soup??
My teacher did the exact same thing but I refused to drink the rock water because... ROCK WATER
Stone soup was one of my favorite books when I was a kid, so this really doesn't sound farfetched to me.
I loved that book so much!
I came here to see if anyone said this!
That was my first thought with this, stone soup!
Bro this unlocked memories that I didn’t know I still had 😂
I was quite surprised that matpat didn't mention it
I went out to eat with my coworkers today and I saw that the restaurant offers ladies night on Thursdays with discounted drinks/food items. I know many restaurants do this sort of deal for different categories as well. It would be cool if you can do a food theory about the origins of “ladies nights” at restaurants! Kinda got me curious!!
Ooh, I didn't know that was a thing, now you got me curious too!
I can't speak for EVERY place, but the origin would have been something like bars. Men would go there looking to meet women, but women wouldn't go there because there was nothing but men looking for women there; so the ratio was terrible. By offering ladies' nights, they give an incentive for women to visit the establishment. At restaurants, it's offering an incentive for a group of people to visit a place as opposed to any other place. If Thursday is Ladies' Night at Applebee's, then on Thursday a woman is more likely to visit Applebee's than all the other places that don't offer a discount, AND they're likely to bring their friends, increasing business overall.
@@doomdragon6 THIS!
the thing about it being a famine food is true, we also got tons of other regional famine food variations such as smectite powder, which is basically a medical-use powder/dirt historically used to feed the masses during famines. theres also a dish that involves cooking an egg by mixing it with burning alcohol. this aforementioned dish has now evolved to be a side-dish to be paired with strong alcohol, just like the rocks (side dishes for alcohol are legit considered a field of study and a major part of culture)
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts.
It's finally completed:https:ruclips.net/video/Z7eeAPclE34/видео.html
Little Hamburger Wagon in Miamisburg Ohio is a famous famine food from the flood of 1913.
The detail that Matpat missed, explained on certain other China-explaining channels, is that the original reason this was posted to tiktok is a side-product of China's "laying flat" movement in which its young people are increasingly giving up on China having any future. It isn't that they're showing off this "famine food" because it is trendy, it's because they're making the statement that China is regressing BACK to the time of mass-famine and it will be them having to resort to such measures.
@@Vaeldarg Oooh now that is interesting!
THANK YOU! and HUGEE respect for all the theorist team for actually doing their research and doesn't making fun of it for being a poverty food, I saw too much people mocking this dish and said such horrendous stuff about it (it's either racist slurs or straight up mocking poor people) :/
sorry if my english is bad it wasn't my mother tongue, greetings from asia!
Honestly, if you hadn't said anything, I would have assumed English was your mother tongue. Your English's pretty good!
You should have more confidence in yourself!
note of advise: no need to say sorry if you english is bad, because it's better english than all my friends (and mine) can do, i am a born english man so trust me, you have good english
I mean, the others said it already, but your English is perfectly fine. No need to apologize for it.
The ultimate example of “it’s just a vehicle to get the sauce to my face”
And to think I’ve been wasting my money buying chicken fingers for years just so I can eat the sauce! 😂
It feels like a new diet trend. “Why waste calories on noodles, potatoes, etc when you can eat just the herbs?”
@@katuni08 except literally every dietist would debunk it easily
Actually, my mom has made bread for years both before and after the pandemic! She doesn’t make it that often, but around Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, she makes amazing cinnamon rolls! Those cinnamon rolls are a brioche, a type of enriched dough (baking nerd code for “We added eggs to this”) with tangzhong, a Japanese technique for cooking the flour beforehand to make the bread fluffier. Sometimes, she also makes pizza/calzones/Stromboli with homemade crust, although again, this is a special treat and not super common. But it does happen!
Gnocchi could be considered "famine food" I think, it was created by peasants in Italy, it's made out of basically just potatoes, and flour, and was combined, originally, with simple tomatoes sauces.
Not it can go for like $40 in high-end Italian restaurants.
If you have potatoes, flour, and tomatoes, you're not in a famine. Those are very conventional foods and putting them together to make a new dish isn't remarkable.
But Gnocchi is actually editable 💀
Problem is that by the time the humble potatoes reached Italy's shore's the major famines of Italian history were mostly in the past. people like to think Italy had tomatoes and Ireland Potatoes for a real long time but no, not until the America's were settled and the seeds for those foods had time to make it back across the Atlantic.
IIRC lobster was considered so bad in the early 19th century that a court ruled that serving it to prisoners more than twice a week was an 8th Amendment violation
Because it’s good
Found it😁
Stone Soup is a European folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys, and exists as a moral regarding the value of sharing. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as axe soup, button soup, nail soup, and wood soup.Wikipedia
I remember this story. We have it in Canada too.
i found it in a children's tale book here in the us
You beat me. It was the first thing I thought about. I grew up on those Medieval fables.
@@hernandezjudea sammeme
Considering the fact that sawdust was a food additive during the industrial revolution, I doubt that wood soup would've been considered anything unusual
Here in Portugal, we have a soup called: "sopa da pedra", wich can translate to something like: "rock's soup". It's basically a soup with a big rock inside to bring an extra flavour.
Nao sejas mentiroso, ninguém mete a pedra na sopa. Nobody does it, its just a soup made with a lot of meat and beans.
@@nureinbratwurst2109 bruh, we literally put a rock to get extra flavour. We usually what the italians did, remove it before serving.
@@tyhqo7654 Se acreditas em tudo o que te dizem, força. Talvez durante uns anos se tenha feito assim, mas, há imenso tempo que nao se mete pedra nenhuma na sopa da pedra.
I can actually see this being adapted into a more edible varient, like using a stone-like ingredient that’s safe to ingest, or maybe a sort of dessert varient, that uses edible rock candy, and while isn’t stir-fried, could be dressed up to look like it is.
I could as well, although I have to say they lost me at scorpions and tarantulas as food… 😵💫🤢🤮
Could replace the stone with some really hard, stale bread maybe?
Just got to the clam part, probably the best bet actually.
@@pigeon1923 That misses the point of why people try this rock dish. For the (cheap) sea favor or novelty. Tho you can just use seaweed for the sea favor. Seaweed is abundant.
@@user-gu9yq5sj7c true, but you wouldn't get the same experience/texture with just seaweed. You could do clams or mussels with seaweed in this stir-fry. You've got the hard shells that you can slurp on, plenty of sea flavour and you can also eat it. Sounds like a win win.
My great grandma had a stone that was carved out to look like a fish. It was put into soup pots and the idea was that it had stored the seasoning much like a good cast iron pan is never truly cleaned. My mom told me about the story of stone soup after I asked about the weird "fish" at the bottom of the pot
magic fish
There were iron fish made that leech out iron into your food - a lifesaver for anaemic populations!
Are you sure it wasn’t a cast iron fish that releases iron into the dish.
@@caitlinmarie49 iron is good for the body😋
@@neoxpro12 never said it wasn’t. I was asking if that’s what it was and not a rock.
Potatoes were first cultivated by the Quechua people during famines. They were previously not eaten due to being poisonous and bitter, but they figured out boiling them made the poison and taste go away. Then they really liked them and began to make all sorts of varieties through selective breeding
Time to start breeding rocks!
I mean, it's digestible. I used to say Chinese people would anything they can chew but I guess this video proved me wrong. They will literally eat anything.
then Europeans mess up with them and then also keep GMO-ing(it's not that bad, ppl) the potato, and now potato is like.. one of the most common food of Europeans.. XD
and by "European", it's also the majority of AMERICAN POPULATION, U WEIRD AMERICANS!
and by "Americans", it's YOU, PEOPLE FROM CANADA TO ARGENTINA/CHILE
@@PMTZ. ?
Reminds me of the story called "stone soup".
One person puts stones in a cauldron filled with boiling water, pretends it tastes amazing. One by one the villagers, investigate and end up wanting soup. So they each bring an ingredient to extend the soup. By the end of the story the cauldron is filled with onions, potatoes, meat, ect....and a few stones.
sneaky.. hehe
This reminds me of making “stone soup” in my first grade class. We started a “broth” with a rock, and everyone brought ingredients from home to add to it. My mom volunteered in my classroom a lot, so she came in that day with some elk meat that she and my dad recently got from bow hunting that season. My best friend is a kindergarten teacher, and they still make stone soup in her class every year. Such a cool activity for the kiddos!
You know it’s a good day when MatPat says 4 dad jokes at the very start of a video
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts
@@p-__W Comment
@@p-__tf is wrong with you
His daddy jokes never get old
@@p-__nahh bro wth 💀
Water pie is one of my favorite famine foods. Although it wasn't exactly a solution to literally starving it was made popular during a time period when people had a hard time affording more expensive ingredients.
You mean the depression pie ?
@@hungcuong606 Probably, I only know of it by 1 name though so I am not certain. It is mostly just flour water and sugar.
@@garethbaus5471 that just sounds like the ingredient for a normal pie shheert
@@idkyouthinkofaname323 basically, instead of fruit, you get water but you probably already know that
Sounds like Transparent Pie (basically pecan pie but without the pecans).
I still make bread after the pandemic. Just mix your flour water and sourdough starter or very small amount of dry yeast and leave it on a counter while you go to work when you get back it's probably ready to cook. It will at least be done by dinner, usually takes 8-14h depending on the temp of the room. IK there are techniques and stuff, but the bread taste fantastic with no kneading and
It's cheaper and easier to buy it from the bakery
@@ViolentCabbage-ym7koNot cheaper but definitely easier
@@wanahmadamsyarzafrie8080 I mean, it requires electricity, an oven, oil, baking sheet, sourdough, flour, a trip to the grocer and lots of time when you can skip all of those steps and just get it from the bakery shop but to each their own, I guess
@@ViolentCabbage-ym7ko funny you mention a trip to the grocer, when you have to make a trip to the bakery every time unless you happen to have a bakery in your kitchen
@@crushy93 just walk to the store takes 5 minutes lmao
I can sort of see why you would add rocks to the cooking process to imbue flavor to the food, but it is different to be sucking directly on the rocks themselves. We do it all the time with plants like bay leaves that are supposed to be removed from the broth before dishing up, for example.
There's also a traditional dish in Portugal, literally called "sopa da pedra" (rock soup). The story was that there was a poor man who didn't have anything to eat so he went to someone's house and asked if he could get some boiling water so that he could make that rock soup. The homeowner was obviously surprised so he said yes. Not gonna go into detail, but basically the poor man often said "rock soup is better with some potatoes" and thus the homeowner would get tricked into giving a lot of ingredients for the soup. In the end, the poor man took off the rock and went to eat a very nutritional soup :)
as a rock i can confirm people’s favourite food is rocks, i see my fellow rocks being grabbed out from the ground everyday and im glad you brought up this topic, im very scared and im living under an ant hill, i see a human coming, wish the best for me.
Godspeed king 🙏🏼
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts 💨
what type of ant? red ants are scary but bullet ants are scarier
🫡Good luck chief!🫡
we can chuck you into the ocean if you want
Reminds me of the Stone Stew fairytale about a hungry traveler who knocked on a door asking the lady for food and she said she had nothing then closed the door. The traveler then picked up a stone and knocked again saying he could make his special stone stew and she was curious as well as hungry so she let him in to see how he made the stone stew. Then he placed the stone in a pot and started heating it up but then told her it would be much better to if they added other ingredients so she did add water, carrots, potatoes, and other ingredients until the smell of stew was wafting threw the town. Other neighbors came in and were curious about the stew so the traveler said they remember having stone stew with chicken so the neighbors said ‘I have chicken’ and they brought it to add to the stew. Then the traveler said the stone stew was ready there was plenty for all but the village was disappointing that the magic stone for the stew was used then the traveler said that the stone is still intact and they realized that the stone wasn’t magic. They all realized how much stew was made together so from then on the neighbors shared what they had among themselves.
I remember that story as well!
I remember this story
my farts are better than Matpat’s farts 💨
@muhelectionwasstolen7253 Guess the moral is that if you share as a Group everybody benefits (since well in the story people individualy all only had like 1 ingredient or so)
@muhelectionwasstolen7253Sharing is better than suffering alone. Everyone altogether had enough food to create nutritious meals that could feed everyone but their lack of hospitality and kindness ensured they all suffered until the traveler came
I mean we already eat rocks, salt.
this is one of mat pat’s best food theory videos imo, i love when his theories are based around history and human geography, i personally find it really interesting
I think you just like rocks is what I'm getting from your username
@@demonicore377 fair enough 😔
I completely agree! The history and stories behind the development of different foods is incredibly fascinating!
I can also see it being popular among people who are dieting as a way to get the flavor without the calories.
EDIT: I am not endorsing this!! I know it is ED behavior. Regardless of it being a bad idea though, I can see it becoming popular.
Just licking the seasoning would make you even hungrier
You would still be hungry
Except it will do the opposite of what a diet is supposed to do. Starving yourself does the opposite, as you end up forcing the body into survival mode to store nutrients.
@@viedralavinova8266 Unless ya eat vitamins! I did it, lost 25lbs in 2 months by eating under 600 calories per day with 1hr exercise everyday, followed by a handful of vitamins :)
In defense of OP, they could just substitute, say, the carbs for rock. The veges and meat and broth or whatever could all still be there. Sauces also provide quite a bit of calories.
Please do episodes on the following:
-How sustainable is a Ramen diet for college students?
-Do MRE's come with a laxitive?
-How long should you ideally smoke your food?
-Testing if Taco Bell really gives you diarrhea
The MRE laxative is just a pervasive rumor. They say it's the gum that's in every MRE, but I always chew the gum in my MRE (because it leaves a better taste in my mouth after the rest is gone) and have never had any effect like a laxative.
@@SgtSupaman Sorbitol is a laxative and an artificial sweetener in some gum but you have to take quite a bit of it to get that effect.
Taco Bell gives people with a bad diet diarrhea. If you eat enough fiber, and then eat a taco bell burrito, you won't have diarrhea.
As far as I remember he already did an episode on Taco Bell diarrhoea
The last one is a thing, but more why the idea of Taco Bell giving you diarrhea is a thing.
I love watch every theory channel because they give a good distraction for when I don't feel like breathing anymore. It makes me learn something interesting and new. I feel like now and days I can't really feel that, but watching these videos help in a way(?)
i know what you mean. i hope it gets better for both of us.
2:38 - Sure, but I've heard boulder claims than that.
This feels more like a snack to me than an actual meal, (now that it's not famine food) and snacks don't have to be good for you in any way, definitely could still become expensive
Little Hamburger Wagon in Miamisburg Ohio is a famous famine food from the flood of 1913.
I was thinking the same thing. It's just a way to deliver the flavor more than anything else.
@@sion8 Macronutrients too. Better than drinking oil and eating spoonfuls of herbs and spices.
@@johnr797
Maybe, not sure.
@@sion8 Well, I mean, it just objectively is. You would get extremely sick trying to do either of those things I mentioned. And if you have nothing else to add those fats and nutrients to, why not porous rock?
0:27 Honestly, I respect that you're getting boulder with the jokes despite the backlash.
I can speak from experience as a portuguese person we have a dish called "Sopa da pedra" which means Stone's soup, and it has been popular for way over a few centuries
This just reminds me of a book I read as a kid called "stone soup" where it was literally a story of someone making a soup from nothing more than a big stone and water and cooking it for a long time
I was looking to see if anyone had commented about this book.
In Portugal, one dish called Sopa da Pedra used to contain a stone in it during cooking and then removed. I don't know if people still do that but I remember a lot of family members doing that when I was a kid.
Há muitos anos que nao se mete a pedra na sopa.
We have had a lot of famine food in Norway, because of the winter. Most of it was with potatoes, fish or mushrooms though lol. They would salt the fish so it would last through the winter.
I also recently found out that salmon sushi was actually made by Norway and Japan together. Norway wanted a bigger marked for our salmon so they got Japanese chefs (in Japan) and together came up with salmon sushi. Before that they didn’t use salmon on sushi
7:37 holding that cactus must be PAINFULL
The fact that Mat brought up this show 5:03 made me sooo happy!!! I love Bizarre Foods❤❤ I watched this show all the time growing up and I really thank it for the food palette I have now and for me not being afraid to try new foods.
Little Hamburger Wagon in Miamisburg Ohio is a famous famine food from the flood of 1913.
As a Goron. I can confirm that rocks are my favorite food.
Link would agree.
Hi matpat I was wondering if you could do a video on how edible metals like gold and silver are. Usually I do not share my theories because I feel I will never be noticed but I hope you will cover this on one of your videos. You and your team are amazing 👏 ❤
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but they end up on Matapat’s plate
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts.
@@p-__Do you use baked beans
Matpat:Don't mind us we are just sucking rocks, if this is the taste i don't wanna taste at all:)
@@gneu1527 They use spam accounts. they just spam alot of comments with that reply.
0:25 he is a dad so it make senses
My family got into breadmaking when covid started and well.. I was made to switch to homemade bread with them.
Now 3 years later.. I'm the only one still making homemade bread.. I just like it more than store bread.. Its worth putting in the time for the delicious bread
Fun fact!
During world War 2, the Dutch famine, know to the Dutch as the Hunger winter (Hongerwinter) forced certain areas which grew a lot of flowers for commerce to eat flower bulbs.
This was only in the still German occupied areas of the country. They cut off supplies to many villages redirecting everything to the German war machine.
9:59 it appears Mat is fully aware of the "Matpat out of context" videos.
5:32 I don’t know where you’re eating in the US but I’ve never seen or heard of cactus fries
I'm Chinese, and i was living in China for 20 years of my life.
The stir fry rocks is a small regional delicacy where some people from that province may enjoy sometimes even when they have the money to buy other real food.
Me, from the northern part of china, has never had it in my life, or seen people around me eat them. I'm surprised to see it in night markets!
A lot of people are definitely trying it for their own curiosity, or it's an easy way for them to gain money throughout different shorts platforms. I don't think the dish will actually take off, and be offered in Chinese restaurants world wide.
There are 8 big regional cooking systems in China, and they have so much deliciousness to offer.
Hey matpat, I wanna ask a question; what *is* a calorie, and why does it effect our diet and food habit?
I can see going down to the store and picking up a bag of spiced rocks like a bag of chips marketed as a healthy snack you don't swallow (like the sour workout snacks episode, or sunflower hulls)11:06
I've been wanting to see Food Theory do something that isn't based on a food in the U.S for ages now. Thank you, MatPat for including your international fans.
Nice dad jokes 1:03 they’re gonna knock Matt Stone cold😅
The Matts....
I would love to see an episode on seed oils! Some say they are terrible for you but sunflower seed oil is just so convenient!
Avocado oil is better. Of course, most of it is fake.
8:26 lmao the zupp the pèsch. literally just means fish soup
Holy moly, Ollie is 5??? 😲
Keep up the good work, Steph and DadPat!
As a Norwegian, hearing about rocks as food is funny on a whole different level, because of folktales. More specifically "Askeladden og de gode hjelperene", where a guy literally eats rocks.
As for seaweed, there's talk that it might become a large export in Norway. There's a lot of kelp and seaweed that's not only edible, but also highly nutritious and tasty.
Mat can you please do a video on the iodine conspiracy? Like why is the government so concerned with putting iodine in our salt? Will it protect us from a nuclear attack? Does it make us sick and dependent on our healthcare system? Why, why is there iodized salt! I have researched and I'm not sure myself. I would love your take on this
5:48
Incase it's not mentioned, although there's a bunch of different explanations let's face it, it's extremely likely that Frog's legs and Escargo are also a famine/seige food.
0:54 Is that Emmy lol?
Only mat pat could make me eat rocks for lunch lol
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts
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Sheep
What about president yunobo
@@AutomaticContentDetectoryou clicked the wrong reply
Unrelated but I very much appreciate how the subtitles are correct and have correct grammar. It's not that big of a deal for me but I know there are thousands of viewers who appreciate this.
The absolute best dishes I've ever made were literally scrapped together when I was dead broke. So I have a deep love for stuff like this.
I still make bread from scratch! And I still prefer it over bread from the store. For some reason, the sugar really stands out in a store bought loaf of bread.
Alaskan here, spruce tips are not a famine crop, but just a seasonal treat. We eat mostly the cores of young bright-green spruce tips. But, when they’re really new and tender they are fine whole raw, baked, or fried. They’re also used in tea, jelly, ice-cream, and even local soda.
Hey MatPat, I have a question and I want u too answer why are u more like ly to get a red sour patch kid then a blue sour patch kid?
This takes food fights to a whole new level
There's actually a soup in Portugal called "Sopa da Pedra" (which translates to Rock Soup).
It also is kind of a famine dish but it's based on a legend where a guy picked up a rock from the ground and went to different houses saying he could make rock soup in which he would ask for the rest of the ingredients while cooking to "give it more flavour".
It is a pretty good and filling soup with (besides the rock for tradition) beans, various meats and veggies. I really recommend trying it if you ever get the chance!
If the rock were porous enough, it might be useful for a kind of broth-maker, something at the bottom of a bowl of ramen or pot of stew or something.
Also, my family was making home-made bread, and especially home-made pizza DECADES before 2020, and simply continued to do so after it all went away.
I believe there's a korean cooking vessel that uses the same principle, a porous and heavy usually seasoned by starchy water from rice, I'm sure there's something similar that can take advantage of the phenomenon and be used for broths.
So like...igneous rock?
Well, perhaps pumice, I doubt obsidian would do much good. I specify because they are IIRC, both igneous.@@Bleepbleepblorbus
So what im taking from this is that link is atcually a good cook
Only matpat could make me watch a 12 minute video about eating rocks
Why? Couldn’t you watch the last 34 seconds?
@@swankierSpy2658 cuz its an ad
I just eat seaweed because its delicious 6:54
Finally, someone who agrees people make fun of me for that
I hate seaweed, no offense to anyone I can understand it
This... feels like a famine food.
2:58 Called it.
cactus is also the quenchiest.
A person of culture, I see
I can see this getting popular WITH the rocks as a diet "food." It gives you the flavor of a meal with a FRACTION of the calories, (there's still a little with the seasonings & oils.) BOOM! You've got something to cover your craving for flavor after having little else but protein shakes for the day. It also covers one thing we forget about meals, the SOCIAL aspect, you can have a "meal" without the calories as you catch up with friends sucking on rocks.
3:06 I haven't heard a joke where he says the name of the food and then says "some people say it rocks!"
6:15 he didn’t become clear 😔
In Oaxaca, Mexico, there's rock stew. You put the stew's ingredients in a bowl, heat a rock, and then put the heated rock into the stew to cook it.
I don't think (could be wrong) it's a famine food though, since it's supposedly something more ceremonial that you make for someone special.
God the mental idea of even a small one of those rocks even slightly touching my teeth makes my entire body shiver the same way hearing nails on a chalkboard does uuuuugh
PREACH!!!!!
The Theorist team us trying the Goron diet!
Gorons rolling into this video be like, "Finally, our cultrue's food is being recognized!"
You should make a episode about the fake sugar that replaces sugar in sugar free and diet drinks!!!
Seriously because sometimes those sugar free drinks are sweeter than regular drinks it’s crazy.
Yes I heard the sugar free stuff is worst
Or better yet, explain why so many sugar substitutes that you can buy at the store include *dextrose,* a sugar!
I think another important factor why this dish might last is that most people in the developed world eat incredibly calorie dense diets and many people want to cut back. A meal or snack with lots of flavour but barely any nutrients is actually what a lot of the "diet" industry relies on
I think people are attracted to the novelty or like the sea favor. Seaweed is good for the sea favor and is healthy.
10:24 Pause?
😂😂😂😂😂
6:39 aww
The part that bothers me most was the demonstration at 10:52
If this catches on for some reason, I'd be worried about walking on a bunch of sticky spit rocks laying everywhere.
It's still 2023, get a bucket for your rocks you heathens!
i think it might start a rock collection for many ngl
Here's something I've always wondered about, after taking a shower I always feel hungry afterwards, even if I ate immediately before taking the shower; I'm not the only one that gets that feeling. So...why is that? Why do some people feel hungry after a shower?
Dentists love this food, especially the rocks mixed with veggies that make you chew veggies with a chance to lose your teeth by accidently biting a rock.
It's probably just me but I'm so thankful he was able to comment on Chinese culture without mocking it. I'm just so used to people being disrespectful nowadays, this was awesome.
Ah yes, A food theory about ROCKS.😌✨
My farts are better than Matpat’s farts
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@@SMCwasTaken human
I feel like all of matt's theory channels are just phoning it in most of the time anymore
we already eat stems of plants like celery all the time
so like
what's stopping us from eating wood from trees
6:44 mushrooms hit different ur son needs to have stuffed mushrooms
I bet you really proud when saying 6:21
0:30 I see salt made a cameo in your video, the only actual edible rock.
In Portugal We have a dish that is "Sopa de Pedra" - Stone Soup and we also do it rocks but is just one but we also and other Ingredients like the pasta form Italy
Went to Italy last week and had this dish, one of my favorite dishes I have ever had in my life. Two days later both my mother and brother ordered the same dish. It’s a real treat
There is a Portuguese soup called "Soupa da Pedra" (Rock Soup) it's not a famine food but the story behind it is funny I would recommend y'all checking it out
Reminds me of a children's book I read when I was young called Stone Soup. "Soup from a stone. Fancy that."
Omg yes!! I nearly completely forgot about that book
i also think culture could have something to do with it. now im not a geographic expert so i dont know but i think the feeling of remembering what your ancsestors went through and updating the meal to be more edible so it can become a world phenomon makes people feel like they're doing justice to their culture by getting the word out about it
I am in fact a Goron, and I do eat rocks to reach my daily nutritional values.