Mystery soup takes Nashville to top of Reddit for a day

Jessi Rae Braswell had a day of firsts on Monday.

The 26-year-old from East Nashville had never seen as much soup as what suddenly appeared on her porch — 336 cans in all, without explanation. And she’d never been to the top of a viral Internet sensation.

Done and done.

But one thing remains elusive: Braswell still hasn’t eaten her first can of cream of celery soup, despite her sudden and mysterious abundance.

“Only as an ingredient in a casserole,” she said. “Nobody just eats cream of celery soup by itself.”

A photo of the stacked soups on Braswell’s porch made it to the top of Reddit.com and garnered thousands more views on Facebook on Monday, along with about 2,000 comments and quips. People couldn’t help but suggest several theories about what Braswell believes was an innocent and errant delivery.

A common suggestion, though: that Braswell just doesn’t remember placing a delirious latenight order.

“I definitely didn’t get messed up and order 336 cans of celery soup,” she said.

Braswell, a server at Beyond the Edge in Five Points, said she did get home late Sunday night and didn’t emerge the next day to walk her dog and discover the soups until about 1 p.m.

“There was no packing slip, no delivery notice,” she said.

A former co-worker, Adam Scott, of Hermitage, set off the soup’s meteoric Internet run.

“My friend woke up with 336 cans of cream of celery soup on her porch and has absolutely no idea why,” he wrote on Reddit, alongside a photo.

“Reddit is where you go to see the newest stuff, the funniest pictures, before they’re anywhere else,” Scott told The Tennessean. “This is the kind of stuff that is perfect.”

He wouldn’t say exactly how much time he spent the rest of the day watching the post gain “upvotes” and comments. It eventually reached the most-read position on a popular area of Reddit, which often catapults strange happenings into Web popularity.

Yet for all of the suggestions for how to use the soup — Braswell will likely donate it to a food bank — no one got to the bottom of its origins. Her best guess is that it was intended for a women’s transitional living program previously based out of the home where she now lives.

As for the Internet hoopla, she’s trying to play it cool.

“I went to work. I went to the dog park. I went to Ugly Mugs. I went on with my life.”

Reach Tony Gonzalez at 615-259-8089 and on Twitter @tgonzalez.