The 50’s were about pushing the envelope. We weren’t into old fashioned things. Soups weren’t big pots of ingredients simmered for long hours on the back of the stove. In the 50’s, soups came in little packages like Lipton Soup mixes or in cans like Campbell’s Soup. No muss, no fuss and we thought they tasted fine, probably because we never tasted real home made.
What was even more exiting was the possibility to use these mass produced foods as ingredients in other dishes. This concept was so accepted that we still enjoy them today. Two examples are the Lipton Onion Dip made with sour cream and Lipton Onion Soup Mix and the tomato soup cake.
I haven’t made either of these for a long time.
Of course we haven’t had these in a long time …… WAY too much salt! 🙂
Banjo Steve,
Don’t they make low salt versions these days? So far that hasn’t been an issue for me.
Cream of mushroom, cream of celery, and cream of chicken are still staples in our household when it comes to casserole time. Get a cold; then it Campbell’s chicken noodle soup.
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Hansi,
My favorite used to the tomato bisque which didn’t come along until after the 50’s. In the 60’s I discovered Progresso and my favorite is lentil.
Ralphie…you left out the single most important dish that uses a pre-prepared soup.
Th green ban casserole. No Thanksgiving or Christmas meal would b complete without it. And, oddly enough I like it, despite doing my best to avoid processed food…and it is 100% processed! Canned french-cut green beans, cream of mushroom soup, can of almond slivers, and dehydrated fried onion rings.
Like th Campbell’s Soup commercials say.
That’s what Campbell’s are…mmm…mmm…good!”
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Bob,
It’s a quibble but I associated the green bean casserole with the 60’s. We use the canned creamed soups as bases for other soups and in cooking too. Despite Arthur Godfrey, the dry soups just never made it with our family.
Except for the dip.
Back in the 50s, my mom made tomato soup — often. She’d simply dump the ingredients from the Campbells’ can into a pan and add an equal quantity of water. Set it on the fire and that was that. Simple.
More interesting that tasty, mom also used that same Campbells tomato soup as pasta sauce. Oh, by the way, back in the 50s, I’d never heard the word “pasta.” We called all pastas “sphagtti.” Bill
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Bill, running through all possible thoughts on your comment…and how to verbalize them short of writing a novel…I’ve reduced it to:
***shudder*** (LOL, of course!)
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I have to agree with Bob. You have capture the essence of 50’s cooking in a concise paragraph. I’d forgotten that pasta didn’t come along until later. We had spaghetti, macaroni and noodles. That was it. My mother didn’t use tomato sauce for spaghetti but that reminded me about our neighbors making pizza with hot dogs and velveeta.