644: Apple + Intel, OpenAI's IPO Financials, Tim Cook's RAM Headache, Benedict Evans Interview, Snap AR Glasses, What is Google Doing?, Midjourney Scanner, Codex, MilGrok, and Ada Palmer & Machiavelli
"the Ship of Theseus of the kitchen"
Many a true word is spoken in jest.
–Geoffrey Chaucer (paraphrased)
🥃 🍲🔄 Back in the intro of Edition #460, all the way in the Neoproterozoic era of November 2023, I wrote about the concept of the solera:
I think it originates from the wine world. The idea is to do fractional blending in vessels that are never fully emptied.
In theory, if a winery or distillery is 200 years old and the solera mixing vat has never been fully emptied, some of the original wine or whisky is still in there.
Molecules from that original batch, and from every subsequent year, are going into every bottle, even if in smaller and smaller quantities per cohort each year (it’s a bit like Zeno’s paradox).
It got me thinking about what else is a solera, even if accidentally 🤔
I’m pretty sure that most vehicles’ fuel tanks are never 100% emptied, so there must be some molecules from very old gasoline or diesel in there (fuel is pretty volatile, but so is cask-strength whisky…)
How about batteries? Are there “old electrons” hanging around in my iPhone? haha
Hot water tanks? In theory, you’re supposed to empty them once in a while, but few people do, and even then, I doubt they are 100% empty…
What else?
I found a new one!
It’s called the perpetual stew, or forever soup, or hunter's pot.
Basically, it’s the Ship of Theseus of the kitchen. You keep a stew simmering, eat from it, then keep adding water, vegetables, bones, meat scraps, herbs, grains, etc.
There’s a batch that was claimed to be ongoing since the medieval period all the way to WWII:
A batch of pot-au-feu was claimed by one writer to be maintained as a perpetual stew in Perpignan from the 15th century until World War II, when it ran out of ingredients to keep the stew going due to the German occupation
It’s probably apocryphal (I found a reference to it in this 1981 article). But it’s still a cool idea. Very romantic scene to imagine a busy medieval inn where there’s a big cauldron over the fire, and they just keep throwing stuff in there and serving people from it.
Probably would have some health code issues today, but I’d guess back then it was about as food-safe as anything else (as long as they kept it above the bacterial danger zone of 40°F–140°F / 4°C–60°C) 😅
On the more modern side, there's a beef-broth shop in Bangkok (Wattana Panich 👆) that's kept the same pot going for ~45 years.
A solera you can eat.
📬 💌 There’s been some really good OSV Field Notes in recent weeks.
I encourage you to check out the archive and subscribe, it’s tailor-made for smart & curious people like you.
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