"You see," he said, "the idea of making things that don't spoil is to make them dead to start with, so they don't need to ever die. there's dead metal, that's angel silver, that won't rust or pit or tarnish; and dead cloths like this; and plastics like dead wood that won't dry-rot or get wormy or split. And strangest of all; the angels could make dead food. Food that never gets stale, never rots, never spoils. I eat it."

"I have food like that. I smoke it."

"No, no! Not that evil pink stuff! I mean food, food you eat. Look here." He stood on tiptoe and took down from a high shelf a closed pot of metal, with a dull plastic glow about it. "Metal," he said, "that won't rust, and a jacket of plastic over that. Now watch and listen." There was a ring attached to the top, and Teeplee worked his finger under it and pulled. I expected the ring to come off, but instead there was a hiss like an indrawn breath and the whole top came off in a graceful spiral. "Look," he said, and showed me what was inside: it looked like sawdust, or small chips of wood. "Potato," he said. "Not now, I mean, not just yet; but mix this with water, and you'd be surprised: a mashed-up potato is just what it is, and as good as new."

"As good as new? What does it taste like?"

"Well. Dead. But like food. Throw it in water and you've got something like a mashed-up potato that the angels made, boy, a potato that's a thousand years old." He looked reverently within the pot and shook the stuff; it made a dry, sandy sound. Now even a rock, he said, even a mountain changes in a thousand years. But the angels could make this potato that's dead to begin with, so it couldn't change. They could make a potato that's immortal."

—John Crowley, Engine Summer