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Though the villagers say they have no food to share with him, one by one each puts in what little they do have - an onion, a bit of meat, a bunch of carrots - until they have a nourishing soup that feeds the whole village.
For Diane Reeder, the head of the nonprofit Queens Galley, the story of the Stone Soup is an inspiration for a cookbook that will raise funds for her nutritional education programs, appropriately titled "The Queens Galley Guide to Stone Soup."
The Queens Galley is an organization that creates and implements nutritional education programs for children, families and seniors at risk of "food insecurity" - not having enough nutritional food to eat. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 16 percent of American households with children were "food insecure" at some point during 2001, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
Reeder said the Stone Soup Cookbook came together as she brainstormed ways to help fund the Queens Galley's nutritional education programs, which are mostly offered free of charge to low- and mid-income families and seniors. For each cookbook sold at $25, another will be donated free to a participant in Queens Galley programs, thus boosting funding for the program and contributing to its mission of helping people better understand how to eat well.
"By having a lot of people come together and play a small role, you can solve a larger problem," she said. "I thought one of the ways to do that in a food-related way was with a cookbook. By getting all sorts of people involved - children, adults, chefs, other food-service professionals, dietitians, nutritionists, people who just enjoy cooking. I thought, why not tap into their resources? And it just grew from there."
When Reeder says she wants all sorts of people involved, she's not exaggerating. She's contacted Oprah Winfrey, the White House, NASA, and even Sesame Street's Cookie Monster, whom she wrote after hearing he was trying to cut down on the cookies and eat more healthfully.
So far, her efforts have brought her about 60 of the 500 to 600 recipes she'd like to include in the book, including a recipe for Empire Apple Muffins from Gov. George E. Pataki, and one for Salmon a la Cahill from state Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, D-Kingston. She's hoping to include recipes not just from the Oprahs of the world, but from regular folks who have a recipe they'd like to share.
The Queens Galley Guide to Stone Soup will help fund the group's larger mission of helping people better understand how to buy and prepare food that is economical, nutritional and flavorful. Its free programs include the After School Snack Attack, where kids who are home alone after school learn how to make affordable and nutritious snacks, and the Mother's Culinary workshop, where chefs work with the mothers of young children enrolled in the Women, Infants and Children supplemental food program (WIC) to make the most of their limited food resources.
The programs are taught by local chefs, like David Smythe, an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America, and his wife, Justine Smythe, a chef and food publisher. David Smythe said the common bond of food and preparing food together helps bridge gaps between people that lecturing cannot accomplish.
"I think it's the perfect vehicle to get through to people," he said.
To learn more about the Queens Galley, or to send in a recipe for the Queens Galley Guide to Stone Soup, call (845) 331-0567 or visit the Queens Galley Web site at www.queensgalley.org.
