This Just In

I never meant for this to be a product review, it just happened to morph into one.  Then again, maybe that’s not what this is at all…perhaps I’m just picky.

Anyhow, I was thinking that my taste in soups ran pretty lowbrow, because I really like just plain ole’ Campbell’s tomato soup.  It’s my favorite go-to soup in the world.  Surely there was something more out there…I was missing something, right?

It happened that one afternoon, Toadie and I went to lunch at our local Big Boy restaurant.  They were featuring a creamy tomato and herb soup on the salad bar, and we decided to try it.  We were instantly smitten.  It was easily the best tomato soup I had ever tasted, other than Campbell’s from the can.  Immediately, I decided to start searching for a soup that tasted like this from the supermarket.

My first attempt at finding tomato soup nirvana was with Progresso.

What could be better? High in fiber, chock full of tomato goodness, I was sure this was it.  The soup itself tasted okay, but I didn’t like the little chunks of tomato, and there was too much basil.  I wanted something creamy and not so herb-y.  Back to the drawing board.

My next prospect was another Campbell’s product.  It looks wonderful, doesn’t it?  How could I resist?

Again, there were little gritty chunks of tomato…I did not like this.  Popping the soup into my food processor, I pureed it for about five minutes, until it was nice and smooth.  It smelled heavenly, as if there were roasted peppers and garlic in the mix too.  I heated it up, poured it into my bowl, got my crackers and sat down to eat with anticipation.

The first taste.  Overwhelmingly sweet and something else…I couldn’t put my finger on it.  Three bites later, I was still getting what was apparently the ‘herb’ part of the soup in overwhelming proportions.  I poured the whole bowl down the drain.

I went to my pantry.

I pulled out my old stand by, plain ole’ Campbell’s Tomato Soup in a can.

I heated it up, ate it with my crackers and was happy.

Food snobbery be damned, if you’re looking for good tomato soup from the supermarket, it doesn’t get any better than the original.(Unless it’s my dad’s cream of tomato soup, but who gets that every day?)

S.