Lunch In A Cup -- Wade Through The Flood Of Instant Soups For A Couple Worth Eating

Sep 5, 1993

John Hinterberger

THE KITCHEN COUNTER is a mess.

Gravy-stained cups of paper and plastic and styrofoam are scattered like sorry reminders of hasty consumption. Research. I swear, it's really research.

Nissin Cup O' Noodles. Maruchan Instant Wonton (Pork Flavor). Nile Spice Potato Leek. Fantastic Curried Lentils and Rice. Maruchan Instant Lunch. Vegetarian Chili 'n' Beans (Spicy). Sweet Corn Chowder. "Only a Pinch" Low-Fat Spanish Rice and Beans, and more than a dozen more.

Instant soups in paper cups are a tribute to the American fascination for convenience, low cost and - with one local exception - mediocrity. The soups are premade; all the consumer need do is pour in hot water, re-cover the pedestrian brew with the attached paper cover for from 5 to 8 minutes, and wait.

The increasing amounts of shelf space being set aside for these concoctions of quick-serve nutrition are a testimony to the time pressures that now mark the American way of life; a poignant reminder of how far we have come from what we were when the making of a grand kettle of soup was a half-day love affair with fresh ingredients, family recipes and a soup pot passed down through a generation or more.

Well, this is about the "point-present-now," as one of my since-retired professors used to say, not about the virtues - real or imagined - of what used to be.

"Now" is about near-instant soups, available in a bewildering array of variety and a disturbing sameness of flavors.

With, as I noted above, one exception. Nile Spice Foods, with headquarters in Seattle (production facilities are in Fife), was founded in the mid-1980s by Egyptian-born, French-raised Nadim Spahi, who had graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in food sciences.

His original spice company, based on a family recipe that blended sesame seeds, coriander and cumin, evolved into a quick-brew couscous soup line in 1986 - and sales took off.

The appeal of Nile Spice soups was predictable in a health-conscious era. They were low in sodium (about half that of most commercial-soup products) and lowfat. Calorie counts were therefore low (from 160 to 210 per serving). Guilt-free lunch.

The genesis of the genre was the curiously popular advent of cups of assorted Asian noodles in styrofoam that became ubiquitous in the 1970s. They were similar to the dried bricks of Japanese quick-cook noodle soups, ramen, with their seasoning packets.

Ramen-type noodles were incredibly cheap (and still are). But you needed at least a small pot and a hot plate to make them. With the cups of noodles, all you needed was hot water or access to a microwave.

Nile Spice broadened the category - shifted it, really - to instant couscous and added in dehydrated, all-natural ingredients. They also did away with the styrofoam container, switching to more ecologically acceptable pressed paper in 1989.

Also in '89, Nile Spice introduced a soup cup featuring organically grown potatoes. Their pasta and chili lines came out two years later.

What is surprising about the whole phenomenon is not that these convenience foods are great - they aren't. Any of them. But they can be good, with fairly bright flavor profiles, and if you need to eat on the job or in school, they can save you time and money.

Most cost from $1 to $1.25; they occasionally go on sale for as little as 66 cents. Not as cheap as a low-end ramen noodle package, but they tend to be more interesting.

The two most varied lines on supermarket shelves are Nile Spice (with 23 different soups at present) and Fantastic Foods, Inc., of Petaluma, Calif., which sports similar packaging, often coupled with zingier labels, like Leapin' Lentils Over Couscous or Jammin' Corn & Potato Chowder.

In comparison, tastings between similar recipes of Nile Spice and Fantastic, the local brand won every encounter, spoons down. Nile Spice's flavors were cleaner and more defined.

My preferences were not merely parochial. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a taste test a year ago between Fantastic and Nile Spice Black Bean soups, and by a significant margin (78 to 43), their tasters picked Nile Spice.

To my buds, Fantastic's seasonings and spices seem heavy-handed and bordering on harsh. Their soups also are a bit heavier, denser - some might call them more substantial. In comparison, Nile Spice seems more natural.

That may be because Nile Spice didn't originate as a mass-market product. Instead, Spahi first sold his soups as natural foods to specialty markets. His Potato Leek Soup, for example, is stamped "Certified Organic Potatoes."

That's not to say that after eating a cup of it, you are going to throw away all of your Julia Child cookbooks. But if you start to eat it, the chances are you are likely to finish it.

Likewise the Sweet Corn Chowder. The ingredients are simple and straightforward: sweet corn, vegetables (potatoes, red bell peppers, onion, parsley), butter powder, salt and spices.

It is not the kind of thing you would discourage your kids from ingesting.

Fantastic also markets the low-sodium, low fat, "Only A Pinch" line. I tried their Spanish Rice & Beans. The rice (in all of their recipes that I tasted) doesn't take well to the dehydration-rehydration route. It looks a little like rice - kind of. The seasonings were at the same low level as the fat (2 grams).

A 16-year-old expert tasted it, adjusted seasonings and pronounced: "It's OK if you load it up with salt and pepper."

Which, while not the point, was true.

With the strong reminder that I consider these to be snacks - or meals under duress - there were some I liked:

-- The Fantastic Caribbean Black Beans & Rice came in second to Nile Spice's Black Bean Soup (both were improved with a heaping teaspoon of salsa added).

-- Maruchan (of Irvine, Calif.) Instant Lunch with Shrimp, which has Asian noodles with small dried shrimp and veggies. Their Wontons with Pork, however, will disappoint true wonton lovers.

-- Nile Spice's Potato Leek is quite edible. So is its Couscous with Tomato Minestrone Soup. The Sweet Corn Chowder isn't bad; neither is the Couscous with Lentil Curry.

There may be another use for these dehydrated soup bases. A couple of nights ago, working late, and not wanting to go out, I fried up some sliced hot Italian sausage, threw in a can of hominy, a third of a cup of Mexican salsa and a cup water. Then I tossed in one container of Nile Spices Sweet Corn Chowder and a handful of crushed tortilla chips. Cooked for ten minutes, stirred.

And hid the evidence.

John Hinterberger's food columns and restaurant reviews appear Sundays in Pacific and Fridays in Tempo. Benjamin Benschneider is a Seattle Times photographer.