Souper Heinz

When I was a kid, we lived not too far from a Heinz factory. We always knew back-to-school time was approaching when we could smell ketchup in the air. (I'm sure that's not the only reason I can't stand the condiment that everyone else seems to love, but it's probably part of the equation....)

Even though everyone thinks ketchup when they think of Heinz, I have a cookbook that will probably surprise American readers. 

For Variety Cook with Soup is a Heinz company cook booklet from 1977 trying to get home cooks to use Heinz rather than Campbell's soups in all their home cooking. (Even though Heinz gave up on selling soup in America, it's still a thing in the U.K.)

What kinds of delights did Heinz soups promise? There were, unsurprisingly, plenty of negligible casserole recipes calling for cream soups:

Corn Pudding is probably exactly as cheerless as you imagine a can of cream of celery soup and some extra eggs baked into a can of creamed corn might be.

I just picked this recipe because I love the ear of corn lying back on its husk, enjoying a summer afternoon, blissfully unaware of the fate that awaits....

Some recipes get pretty photo spreads.

What is this vision so bountiful that it necessitates an overflowing cornucopia in the background?

It's Harvest Bean Bake, for all those people who can't decide whether they'd rather have a tomato-soup-meat-sauce, a can of beans, or a serving of baked apples. Just throw them all together and bake for a real harvest "treat."

Of course, any soup cookbook would be a failure if it limited soup use to casseroles and skillet dinners. 

All the old cookbooks needed at least one recipe of foods wrapped in biscuit dough:

This ring is Beef Carrousel. The picture on the back cover is not quite as cute as the one with the recipe, though:

I love the little cows running around on the merry-go-round, especially the way that some of their tails are drawn so it almost looks like they're kicking up an extra leg. Maybe they're trying to run away from a recipe that will mix them with cream of mushroom soup before encasing them in biscuit dough and dumping on a leftover mushroom soup and tomato soup topping. Their resistance is futile.

My last recipe for today says, "Forget soup and sandwich; soup should be on the sandwich":

It doesn't dump barely-diluted condensed cream of something soup on just any old sandwich, either. It's over a baked tuna salad and cranberry sauce sandwich! What fun!

The recipes may be barely passable at best and "Run away!" at worst, but the pictures make this a fun booklet to page through on a lazy afternoon when I'm happy not to smell ketchup hanging in the air.