Adding water to soup.

June 2, 2007 4:41 PM

Why do canned soups have a warning that says "do not add water?" I take it as a warning because the phrase is always capitalized and bolded.
posted by who squared to Food & Drink (15 answers total)

This warning only occurs on some canned soups. For condensed soup, you are supposed to add water.
posted by grouse at 4:44 PM on June 2, 2007

If you add water, nothing really bad will happen, your soup will just be watery.
posted by grouse at 4:44 PM on June 2, 2007

And if you take one of the "do not add" cans and do what you'd ordinarily do with condensed soup, the resulting soup will be thin and tasteless and completely unsatisfactory.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:45 PM on June 2, 2007

Its because in the olden days, you were supposed to add water to canned soups. Now, most soups do not need this added water, and if you add it your soup will taste very watery and blank. It is just a warning to the people who were used to adding water to their soup, so they don't ruin their soup.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 4:47 PM on June 2, 2007

Adding water is the default setting for those of us who grew up on Campbell's. We need to be told not to add water.
posted by lampoil at 5:04 PM on June 2, 2007

For decades and decades, until, oh, ten years ago, pretty much all canned soups were concentrated. So, people got in the habit of ALWAYS adding water to canned soups, without thinking about it. The instructions not to are in caps in order to draw the attention of soup-by-rote makers.
posted by Kololo at 6:06 PM on June 2, 2007

You still have to add water to Campbell's soup.
posted by washburn at 6:22 PM on June 2, 2007

Washburn, it depends on the particular product. Some Campbell's soups require dilution, some do not.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:39 PM on June 2, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks. For some reason "DO NOT" seemed so ominous.
posted by who squared at 6:46 PM on June 2, 2007

If you add water, the terrorists win.
posted by softlord at 7:24 PM on June 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

If you add water, the soup will explode! Remember, always add soup to water, never add water to soup!

Uhh, I mean: what everyone else said about Campbell's historically wanting you to add a canful of water.
posted by hattifattener at 9:25 PM on June 2, 2007

Also, they want you to think, "Wow, this soup is Ready to Enjoy(tm)!"
posted by acoutu at 11:03 PM on June 2, 2007

Damn, I forgot about Chunky.
posted by washburn at 12:12 AM on June 3, 2007

You can make soup go farther if you water it down. Thus the soup maker could theoretically sell less soup that way, I suppose.
posted by malaprohibita at 7:44 AM on June 3, 2007

If you buy the soup that doesn't require additional water or milk, then you're wasting fuel to transport that water or milk, in a can. Wasteful. It isn't that hard to de-concentrate soup.
posted by Goofyy at 7:53 AM on June 5, 2007