There was a story in the Sunday paper some time ago that the Campbell Soup Company was in the midst of tinkering with its product line.
Immediately, as my boyhood friend Bobby Joe High used to say, I got my “dandruff” up and wondered how they could do away with the tomato and chicken noodle (that’s two different varieties, not one) which carried me through much of my childhood and even now brings comfort to my weary soul when needed.
Turns out that’s not the case at all, although there are some major changes coming down the road ... or stove top.
Those two varieties that were such a part of my existence are not being phased out, thank goodness. Instead, seems the company officials and chefs are turning their hats and spoons toward the — as the story called them — “younger, finicky” customers. Now, the experts say, that group has left behind the tried and true for what it calls “heartier varieties with more sophisticated flavors.”
Sophisticated? For canned soup? Give me a break, please.
The old flavors, they say, are too bland and in the next few years the almost 150-year-old firm plans to introduce 50 new products, including soups and sauces. Among them, for instance, is Moroccan Style Chicken and Spicy Chorizo. Not sure exactly what this is. These days, the chicken soup which soothed my soul and worked on countless colds and bouts of flu are made with such ingredients as tomatillos (whatever they are), coconut milk and shiitake mushrooms.
I’m not one to throw out all spices and flavorings. I’ve even graduated to a black pepper variety that tastes like Worcestershire sauce and is good on everything from soup to scrambled eggs, but I’m pretty sure tomatoes and coconut milk don’t belong on the same table, at the same time, with some mushrooms.
What’s going on, I am told, is that many of these new varieties have already been tried in “trendsetting” cities like Portland and London and the “Millennials,” folks in the age group from roughly about 18 to the early 30’s, are the solid-gold greatly-wanted market share group. It is members of that segment who, for instance, are now big fans of Green Thai Curry Skillet sauce, served over a delicious bowl of tofu.
But I ask: have you seen what Portland has turned into the last few years? At least the part that’s still standing after the street fires and riots. Do you want your taste buds and dietary habits to be guided and influenced by folks who do things like that?
It was chicken noodle and tomato that got me through all sorts of childhood bouts of the flu, bad colds and those serious episodes of “I don’t want to go to school today.” That and my mama letting me nestle down in her big ol’ bed with the thick pillows and the radio by the bedside where I could listen to Bill Jackson and Wally Ausley all day long on WPTF. It was there that she brought me a big stack of comic books, all the soup I could hold and Zesta saltines lathered with creamy Peter Pan peanut butter. Lots of times the tomato soup would come with cheese toast or pimento cheese sandwiches, even cheese melted into the soup.
Now today when I get sick, I pop a bunch of pills and continue on, thereby infecting everyone I meet while I’m sick. No doubt the world — mine and everyone else’s — would be much better off if I’d forget the pills and just load up on old chicken noodle or tomato, crawl into the sack and hunker down with some comic books and listen to old rock and roll or some quality Bluegrass (since Bill Jackson and Wally Ausley aren’t with us anymore).
And if grilled juju root with tofu sauce or Sliced Sow Snout Supreme gets the push toward becoming the offering for comfort soup, I believe I’ll just stay uncomfortable. I’d rather find my soup tastes to be determined by the good folks of rural Chatham County than Portland.
Bob Wachs is a native of Chatham County and retired long-time managing editor of the Chatham News/Chatham Record, having written a weekly column for more than 30 years. During most of his time with the newspapers, he was also a bi-vocational pastor and today serves Bear Creek Baptist Church for the second time as pastor.