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. Almeirim is considered the capital of stone soup.[citation needed]
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.
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).
Hope you can join us for our annual Thanksgiving tradition of Stone Soup on Wednesday the 26th.