Campbell Cooking With Soup

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I stumbled across this book, Cooking With Soup:A Campbell Cookbook, at one of our local libraries’s annual used book sale. I was lucky enough to find it during the end of the day bag sale – where you can fill up a whole bag of books for $5!

The first edition of the book was originally published in 1964. My copy of the book is the 15th printing of the book, being printed in November, 1982.

There are over 5,270,000 copies in print! Needless to say, it is not an extremely rare or valuable cookbook, but it certainly is one that is interesting and paints a great picture of how people used to entertain and what their daily lives were like 40 or 50 years ago.

If you’d like to buy this book, you can find it on Amazon website here: Cooking With Soup: A Campbell Cookbook – many sellers have a great deal on used copies!

Most of the recipes in the cookbook revolve around the use of their condensed soups. Sadly, there are a few soups in the cookbook that I don’t believe are made anymore.

One of the condensed soups that is frequently mentioned is “Cream of Asparagus” – and while the product still appears on their website, it came up with zero results for where I could actually buy it. Which is a shame, because some of the recipes calling for it sounded pretty interesting.

The cookbook begins with some very helpful suggestions for cooking with condensed soups. As you probably know already from cooking various classic recipes, condensed soups are great for making gravies, sauces, casseroles, and using as a starter for other soups and stews.

I personally have always liked cooking with condensed soups as it makes a lot of recipes “souper simple”.

I also have to say I am definitely a loyalist to Campbell when it comes to condensed soups. If you’ve ever tried the generic brand condensed soups, they are just not quite the same!

Party and International Specialties

I thought this was a pretty interesting section of the cookbook, especially because it is true – in the late 1960’s and 1970’s homes were built much, much, much smaller than the grand old gigantic houses built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

Our own current house, built in the 1970’s is a perfect example of this – it’s only a little over 1,000 square feet of finished living space! It does not have a dining room either!

Cooking With Soup for Teenagers

The cookbook also has a section just for teenagers. That kind of struck me as sort of amusing, because I know myself as a teenager would have definitely NOT been reading a cookbook about condensed soups. {And yet, look at me now, charmed by it!}

On the page above is perhaps what I would say is the strangest recipe in the whole book: Creamy Peanut Butter Tomato Soup.

I don’t know if I can bring myself to try it. I always have peanut butter on hand, and I always have condensed tomato soup on hand…but peanut butter and tomato soup together? I don’t know, I don’t know.

Most of the recipes in the cookbook are considered staples and classics by now – I’m sure you’ve had green bean casserole or tuna noodle casserole no doubt at some point in your lifetime {unless you are someone who despises both tuna and green beans!}.

Many of the classic recipes are very familiar and have been adapted by different people over the years, but they are still the same reliable Campbell’s soup recipes that many people have grown to love.

Do you have the vintage cookbook Cooking With Soup? Do you like to cook with condensed soups? Share with me your favorite recipes and memories of cooking with Campbell’s in the comments section below!

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