CHRIS RUNDLE

THIS WEEK CHRIS HARKS BACK TO A TIME WHEN PACKET 'FLORIDA SPRING VEGETABLE SOUP' WAS A MINOR MIRACLE

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A homemade spring vegetable soup

CAME across an old friend the other day. I was idly scrolling down a list of groceries and there it was. The encounter was vivid, unexpected. And immediately opened up a timeline of memories going back for more decades than I care to count.

It was nothing more than an image of a packet of spring vegetable soup, of the kind which used to be sold with the prefix "Florida." And which in its time was regarded as a minor miracle.

Because prior to its arrival on the market soup was something that came in tins. Unless you made your own. Which, surprisingly, a lot of people didn't in those days, having had enough of scrimping and making do in the war and preferring instead one or other of the Campbell's soups that were then arriving from Canada and being heavily promoted.

They were fine as far as they went. But, like Canadians themselves, they weren't terribly exciting. And then we arrived at the age of the packet soup, the freeze-dried envelopes of powder which magically extended the soup repertoire, and above all the wonder-food that was Florida spring vegetable soup.

Nothing more than a pack of dust and bits with flavour enhancers it might have been but I cannot tell you the impact it made on austeritydulled palates in the 50s. Here once properly reconstituted and cooked was no tinned sludge but a clear (if suspiciously gummy) broth with all kinds of vegetables swirling colourfully around.