What are we dealing with here?

These are vegetables my friend, pure and simple. Let’s run them down – carrot *tick*, potato *tick*, beans *tick*, peas *tick*. All the big dogs. These are, by and large, things you would be pleased to find floating in your lunch. The potatoes are decent chunks and aren’t too hard and the other veggies are in decent shape considering they have lived the cooked portion of their afterlife sealed in a metal tomb.

Broth

I am not entirely sure what separates a broth from perhaps a bisque or stew, but this seems very broth-y. It has that kind of oily sheen that makes you think someone actually cooked it in a pan or something. As such, it is thin, but the chunks of veg sailing upon it do help to break up the monotony.

Heartiness

I think garlic is basically the heartiest flavour and is the cornerstone of the tinned soup playbook (and most food). Garlic is the 4-4-2 or missionary position of ingredients. You know where you stand with it. Garlic would probably help you paint your nursery or move a mattress down a flight of stairs. And yeah, we know, you always put more than the recipe asks for in your cooking – everyone does that. It’s fine. This soup is filled to the gunnells with the stuff.

Population control

How much stuff do you want or need in your soup? I think the balance here is decent. For 65p you are getting enough vegetables that most spoonfuls will have some veg on them. Sometimes I play a little game and close my eyes, dip down with the spoon and then open them to reveal what vegetable I have picked up this time. The one I’m most pleased to find, you ask? The humble potato, of course. The game loses mystery as you get near the end as basically the vegetables are barely covered by broth at that point.

So hang on, you just did all your shopping in Sainsbury’s this week?

Yeah I did, actually. I live near a big Sainsbury’s and it was convenient. So maybe the next few soups will be from there, but next week I’ll go somewhere else for my soup, OK? God, I hate it when you’re like this.

Conclusion

This is a really tasty soup that’s good value for money. It has no major frills, but is a solid recommend without any major drawbacks either.