名人饮食怪癖 Four eccentric eating habits of influential figures

2. Beethoven’s Soup 贝多芬的鸡蛋汤

Ludwig van Beethoven is known for many things, but few know just how seriously he took his soup. According to the famous composer, only a housekeeper or cook with a pure heart could prepare a pure soup.

One of Beethoven’s favorite dishes was a mushy bread soup, which he consumed every Thursday with 10 large eggs to be stirred into the soup. He inspected the eggs by holding them to the light and then cracking them open with his hand. Woe to the housekeeper if they weren’t all entirely fresh. Beethoven would call her in for a scolding . She only half-listened because she had to be ready to flee, as it was Beethoven’s custom to pelt her with the eggs as a punishment.

According to Ignaz von Seyfried, an opera conductor during Beethoven’s time: “(Beethoven’s housekeeper) held herself in readiness to beat a quick retreat before, as was customary, the cannonade was about to begin, and the decapitated batteries would begin to play upon her back and pour out their yellow-white, sticky intestines over her in veritable lava streams.”