Savory Soups

In the north east we are well into the deep winter and with winter comes snow storms and power outages and short supplies and all sorts of panic even though we go through the discomforts every year. Some look forward to it and others dread it nevertheless it is here. And so is the need and desire for soup. No other time of year do I really want hot liquid food sliding down my  throat.  Only when my neck is cold. These days you can find all kinds of soups everywhere with ingredients  you never thought would be good in a soup. A real guy soup is a can of Chunky Beer-n-Cheeze  with Beef & Bacon that you can buy right off the supermarket shelves.  I’m not sure how good it is for you but it sure was filling Burp!

Hey! With beer in soup written right there on the label in supermarkets? Can a kid just buy a lot of soup and get a buzz on? Silly me. The alcohol is cooked out of the beer in the boiling process. The guys at Cambell’s  Soup, guys like Mark Alexander the president of Cambell’s Soup of North America says that they are working on making hundreds of kinds of soup. Soups like Tomato Chipotle  & Olive Oil, Moroccan Style Chicken with Chickpeas, Tuscany-Style Chicken & Pasta, Mexican-Style Chicken Noodle Creamy Thai Style Chicken with Rice and more. Now I know our country is becoming more diverse by the minute, but must my soup be that different too?

When I grew up soup was basically Chicken noodle and I would only endure that when my nose was really stuffed up. Now I can feel like I am on vacation eating some exotic soup. Cambell’s Chunky has a variety called Jazzy Jambalaya with Chicken Sausage & Ham. There is Kickin’ Buffalo-Style Chicken even the packaging is not even in a can anymore. There are squeeze pouches filled with soup now. No can opener necessary. There are now 2 Billion containers   of Cambell’s Soup sold each year. There are still the old standby recopies the company would not dare to discontinue. Varieties like Cream of Mushroom Soup that makes every casserole special, or good old Chicken Noodle and Tomato Soup even though they have a slew of Organic varieties. So where did the old  fashioned stuff come from?

The company big shots say that their chicken noodle soups have 32 feet of noodles in every can. Really? Now you know what I will be measuring while stuck in the house during a snow storm. Another trade secret lies in every can of Chunky’s Sirloin Burger with country vegetables. They say that there are about 8 to 10 mini burgers in every can and each one has little grill marks on them. Do they have little grills in the factories too? Yes, If we get 24 inches of snow as predicted,sometimes, I will be tearing open the burger soup and counting those little treats. Maybe they have little chefs with little flippers too?

So, a snowy day with soup doesn’t have to be boring but if you try to make it too interesting I m sure your family  will eventually throw you out of the kitchen.  Maybe I can sell pictures of the can for money? Yeah we all know Andy Warhol already that and made millions of dollars doing it. I also heard that he ate the same lunch for 20 years. Yup. It was soup. Slurp!