Woman goes viral for making a ‘perpetual stew’ that’s been cooking for 40 days

There are few things invented in the medieval times we still use today: the compass, the clock and the printing press, to name a few. Now, another concept from the time of Charlemagne and Joan of Arc has found its way to the cultural forefront — and it’s piping hot.

On June 7, Bushwick, Brooklyn resident Annie Rauwerda began a journey that would garner her millions of views, tons of curious onlookers and hungry participants with ingredients in hand, ready to see — and eat — a serving of her perpetual stew. The TikToker and creator of popular Instagram account Depths of Wikipedia has been keeping the same Crock-Pot full of constantly cooking stew cooking since early June, and July 18 will mark its 40th day of existence.

“It’s perpetual stew summer,” announces Rauwerda in a TikTok from June 10 — and for her and many other Bushwick residents, it has been.

You may be wondering what a perpetual stew is, exactly. According to British historian Reay Tannahill who wrote the book “Food in History,” medieval peasants hardly ever emptied out their cauldrons except when Lenten season began. The rest of the year (minus those 40 days for a meatless Lent) the food bubbling away in the cauldron was both eaten from and added to in a constant state, eliminating the potential for foodborne illnesses as long as the fire was going.

Additionally, in Poland, a stew called “bigos” (or hunter’s stew), which was invented in the 14th century, is largely seen as the first instance of this concept being put into practice. The addition of fermented cabbage to bigos served as a natural preservative and allowed the stew to be stored and reheated over several days.

Nowadays, Rauwerda has taken the perpetual stew concept and made a few modern alterations, using social media to document the entire process. Her videos on the subject posted on TikTok, some of which depict “stew parties,” have garnered millions of views.

“I’ve got a potato leek simmering in the Crockpot and it feels like the first day of the rest of my life,” Rauwerda wrote on her website, perpetualstew.club, the very first day she dropped ingredients into her slow cooker.

For Rauwerda, the viral response to her perpetual stew first came as a shock, at least at first.

“I think the concept alone is pretty charming, the idea of things continuing. I feel that lately, especially where people can find community when you’re in your 20s,” Rauwerda tells TODAY.com.

“I think that coming out of quarantine we were all feeling a little bit socially stunted,” she continues. “We’re living in a time where the internet and so much of social life is online, so it feels kind of special and unique to have an in-person gathering.”

Since its beginnings, the stew has undergone many changes: an early addition of lentils and carrots on June 9, one cup of rice and a slew of vegetables on June 11, endive and pasta on June 27 — and more.

Is it any good, you ask? “Completely depends on the day,” Rauwerda wrote with refreshing honesty on her website. She also tells us that while most of the ingredients she's been given to become part of the stew have been standard fare, there have been a few head-scratchers.

“Someone brought frozen raspberries and I was like, ‘Oh, thank you. I’ll make a smoothie this week or something,’ and they were like, ‘No, no — it’s for the stew,’” Rauwerda says, adding that she’s kept the stew vegetarian as well as avoided adding spicy ingredients, to keep it as accessible as possible.

“I was just like, I would have to really think about how to include this,” she says. “If I were eating a mystery soup and I had a big bite of hot raspberry, I would be freaking out.”

Is it safe to consume? “Yeah, it should be,” her website reads. “We keep the stew cooking at a boiling temp at all times and we also cycle (eat) the stew out throughout the week so ingredients aren’t in there for too long. At the event, I stand next the the stew to vet all additions.” (No, the raspberries didn’t make it in.)

It's not for everyone — but it is for a lot of people, since they are lining up around the block to toss in their ingredients and fill their bowl with it.

Throughout the whole ordeal, Rauwerda has meticulously documented the addition of ingredients, using a living document on Google Sheets to mark the stew’s progress.

“I first learned about the ‘perpetual stew’ concept back in the throes of quarantine when community events, let alone communal pots of stew, seemed like utopian fantasies,” Rauwerda wrote on her website. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I want to do that,’ which is also how I felt about preposterous-yet-possible Wikipedia articles like dishwasher salmon and extreme ironing and bog snorkelling and squirrel fishing.”

Something she wants to make crystal clear: “The idea of perpetual stew is not new,” she writes on her website. “I cannot stress this enough. I am not doing anything novel.”

In this millennium, at least, there are many examples of perpetual stew: Take, for example, chef Enrique Olvera's perpetual mole madre, which is, according to our calculations, over 2,800 days old at this point.

For almost two years, a perpetual stew had been simmering at New York City restaurant Louro, until the restaurant shuttered June 2015. The stew had its own Twitter account, marking its own progress with constant updates.

In Bangkok, Thailand, there is a restaurant called Wattana Panich that has had its own perpetual stew simmering constantly for more than 45 years, first bubbling up in the mid-'70s. The ingredients in that stew include garlic, cinnamon, black pepper, cilantro root, Chinese herbs and beef, which is left simmering for hours before serving, according to the shop’s owner.

On Yelp, a review for the restaurant from June 2023 said that the soup was still going strong, remarking that “once you taste it, it is straight to OMG!”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com