The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup

Post by sowbug » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #39

pphysch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. The pot is surprisingly small. Is the sauce in it highly concentrated or something?

Yes, 滷肉 ("braised meat") is highly concentrated. You can't eat the sauce by itself like a stew, it would be too rich. So it's usually served on white rice or in this case noodles. The ingredients are typically finely minced fatty pork with soy sauce and strong flavorings like dried mushroom, garlic, star anise, and a fermented bean sauce that's super salty. Plus other ingredients that make the taste unique to the che…

Post by vinceguidry » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #51

lithocarpus wrote: post #44

I've gone without a fridge for 8 years now and do something kind of like this usually - I'll cook a pot of food and then steam or boil it again after ~24 hours to reset the clock on it rotting. It's handy for things like eating a whole chicken or other large soup. I switch between being home and on the road a lot so my pot just comes with me and can be re-cooked on my car stove or my home stove. I tend to cook or re-…

The bacteria is still there, its just dead. Along with all of its waste. Leaving soup at room temperature over night is crazy. Its usually the biggest food borne illness vector in restaurants so they usually boil then move straight to cooling. Ive learned leaving soup out and reboiling is fairly common in some cultures which is unfortunate. Bacteria rapidly multiplies at room temperature around the world (well, maybe…

Post by kccqzy » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 7:07 PM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #52

ilamont wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, 滷肉 ("braised meat") is highly concentrated. You can't eat the sauce by itself like a stew, it would be too rich. So it's usually served on white rice or in this case noodles. The ingredients are typically finely minced fatty pork with soy sauce and strong flavorings like dried mushroom, garlic, star anise, and a fermented bean sauce that's super salty. Plus other ingredients that make the taste unique to the che…

By the way, if you haven't tried 滷肉飯 (lǔròu fàn, or braised pork with rice), you should. You can't walk more than a block in Taipei without finding it, but I've seen it only once in the US.

Post by abeppu » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #50

abeppu wrote: post #45

I think there is an optimization question buried here. In tech lots of people have experience with A/B tests, which function on the assumption that you have a stream of fresh sessions which are independent. Multi-armed bandits, Thompson sampling etc give us frameworks for generalizing this towards finding the best option among a finite set of candidates, if goodness is fixed over time. This is kinda the opposite end…

I see no reason to believe the quality could be improved over a more normal cook period. Even super long boils like tonkotsu can be achieved by other means (pressure). IMO its more of a gimmick and frankly kinda gross.

Post by parl_match » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #52

ilamont wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, 滷肉 ("braised meat") is highly concentrated. You can't eat the sauce by itself like a stew, it would be too rich. So it's usually served on white rice or in this case noodles. The ingredients are typically finely minced fatty pork with soy sauce and strong flavorings like dried mushroom, garlic, star anise, and a fermented bean sauce that's super salty. Plus other ingredients that make the taste unique to the che…

By the way, if you haven't tried 滷肉飯 (lǔròu fàn, or braised pork with rice), you should. You can't walk more than a block in Taipei without finding it, but I've seen it only once in the US.