The Committee for the Provisional Standardisation of Regional Soup

The committee had been meeting every third Tuesday for eleven years to determine whether żurek or barszcz should be designated the Official Ceremonial Soup of the Małopolska Regional Development Initiative, and it had not yet reached the quorum required to begin formal deliberations, because the question of what constituted a quorum was itself under review by a subcommittee, which had not met since 2019 due to a scheduling conflict with a different subcommittee investigating the original subcommittee's terms of reference.

Pan Eugeniusz Broda, who served as Acting Provisional Secretary in the absence of the Provisional Secretary, who was absent in the absence of the Secretary, who had retired, opened his folder. The folder contained the agenda, which contained one item, which was the agenda for the following meeting. This was standard.

"I move," said Pani Zofia Kulka, representing the Beet Growers' Collective of the Southern Uplands, "that we table the motion to untable the motion we tabled in March."

"Which March?" asked Pan Henryk Twaróg, who had been representing the Rye and Allied Fermented Products Association since before some of the younger members had learned to drive.

"The relevant March," said Pani Zofia.

This was recorded in the minutes as a point of clarification pending clarification.

The soup question had originated, as all great institutional catastrophes do, from something entirely reasonable. Someone in 2013 had suggested that the regional tourism brochure might benefit from featuring a signature dish. The suggestion had been forwarded to the relevant department, which had forwarded it to the relevant other department, which had determined that a decision of this cultural magnitude required an interdepartmental body, which required a founding charter, which required legal review, which required a budget line, which required approval from a committee that no longer existed, whose responsibilities had been absorbed by a committee that interpreted its mandate as not including soup.

A new committee was formed. It was given a name so long that the acronym was itself unpronounceable, and so it was referred to informally as The Soup Committee, which three members found undignified and two found charming, and the Acting Provisional Secretary recorded as "the body hereinafter referred to by its full designation, abbreviated for internal correspondence purposes as TSC, noting that TSC is not to be construed as an endorsement of informality."

By 2017, the committee had produced four position papers, two of which contradicted each other on the question of whether a soup could be ceremonial if it was also eaten at funerals. Pan Henryk had written a minority opinion. Pani Zofia had written a minority opinion about his minority opinion. Someone from the Culture Office had attended one meeting, eaten a biscuit, and never returned.

Today's meeting had been called to address correspondence received from the Regional Tourism Board, which had, after eleven years, gently enquired whether the soup question had reached any conclusions, as they were updating the brochure and had left a blank space.

The blank space was described in the letter as "approximately the size of a soup bowl, metaphorically speaking."

Pan Henryk felt this was flippant. Pani Zofia felt it was actionable. The youngest member, a thirty-four-year-old from the digital transformation office named Paweł, who had been assigned to the committee six months ago and still believed things could be resolved, suggested they simply vote.

The silence that followed was the kind that has weight and texture. Pan Eugeniusz looked at his folder. Pan Henryk looked at the ceiling. Pani Zofia looked at Paweł in the way a weather system looks at a small coastal town.

"Vote," said Pan Henryk eventually, as though the word were a foreign object he was turning over in his mouth. "On the soup."

"On the soup," confirmed Paweł.

"Without the subcommittee's findings on quorum?"

"We have seven people in the room. Seven is definitely a quorum."

"Seven is definitely a number," said Pan Henryk. "Whether it constitutes a quorum is a separate matter, and I would refer you to—"

"Section four, paragraph two, subsection C," said Pani Zofia, "which uses the word 'sufficient,' which is not defined."

"I could look it up," said Paweł.

"It was defined," said Pan Eugeniusz quietly, "in the 2015 working document. But that document was never formally adopted because it was submitted in the wrong font."

Paweł wrote something in his notebook. He underlined it. He stared at it for a moment. Then he turned to a fresh page.

The meeting concluded forty minutes later without reaching the agenda item, which was, as previously noted, the agenda for the following meeting. The minutes were distributed the next day. They ran to fourteen pages. The soup remained undecided, ceremonially speaking, though everyone agreed, in the corridor afterward, that the coffee had been terrible and somebody really ought to do something about it.

A subcommittee was proposed.

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