SOUPER RICE

 “Remember ‘souper rice,’” asked my stepson Yancey.

Yes, I do remember, now that he reminds me. Yancey was an adolescent in our home when I was learning to cook for a family, trying to develop my own repertoire. I was always open to an experiment, especially if it was easy. I remember making “souper rice.”

“I love it,” continued Yancey, “but the recipes I find aren’t the same. How did you make it?”

“It was a can of cream soup and a can of instant rice,” I said, “and I think it was a soup can of liquid.”

“Well, I can’t find that recipe online,” said Yancey.

So, I looked. And he was right. Recipes abound for “souper rice,” but they aren’t the same as the simple recipe we were remembering.

“Think!” I said to myself. “What can you remember about that recipe that might lead you to the original?”

And then I did remember. It was a magazine ad or maybe a TV commercial, probably in the ‘70s. So, I searched “souper rice, ‘70s ad,” and the 1979 TV commercial for Minute Rice came up on YouTube (here).

To make the original "Souper Rice:" make any can of cream soup according to the directions. Bring to a boil. Pour one soup can of Minute Rice into the boiling soup. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for ten minutes. Serve.

I had success with that recipe when I first made it, as Yancey remembers. Then it got so it didn’t work for me – too soupy. What happened? Was I doing something wrong? Did the soup can shrink? Was the rice processed differently? I don’t know. But evidently, I wasn’t the only one that noticed a problem because today’s internet renditions show the proportions of this recipe have changed. The beauty of the original recipe was that the basic measurement was the soup can.

“You might have to adjust the amounts,” I advised Yancey. He assured me he could do that. I take pride in knowing that I taught him some of what he knows about cooking. KW