Progresso Italian-Style Wedding Soup With Meatballs (15.25 oz.)

Item Purchased: Progresso Italian-Style Wedding Soup With Meatballs (15.25 oz.)
Location Purchased: 7-Eleven / 1350 S. Halsted / Chicago, IL
Price: $2.69 + tax

Review: I've never been to an Italian-Style wedding. Nor have I ever eaten soup at a wedding. Despite these two facts, the folks at Progresso make a soup that describes itself as appropriate for both. I describe it as Chef Boyardee meal in chicken broth.

Progresso was once a family owned Italian food company, but was swallowed up by General Mills and one of several of their other brands, Betty Crocker in the 1970s. Since I grew up in the 1980s, I can't compare the family-owned taste to the current assembly line taste. Hell, assembly-line taste is virtually all I know when it comes to branded food in cans or microwave containers. All I can say for sure is that the meatballs in this soup taste exactly like the meat in every canned pasta product I have ever had. From SpaghettiO's to Chef Boyardee Ravioli, Progresso's soup meatballs smack of the same pressed cow and cardboard parts I have grown to love tolerate be familiar with. The tiny tubetti pasta, spinach bits and sponge-like carrot cubes floating in the factory chicken broth add a bulky and somewhat pleasant texture to this small mass of lunch.

As far as convenience foods go, this stuff isn't all that bad. For only $2.69 and a couple of minutes in the microwave, I was able to fill myself with the great great great great grandchild of home-cooked food. The best part is, I only felt a miniature buzz from all of the nitrates floating around in my bloodstream afterwards.

The major complaint I have is how hard it is to get the plastic cover off of the microwave soup bowl size containers. It seems that several other people are having the same problem as well. Progresso even addresses this on their website with a handy step-by-step illustration on how to take the cover off. I wonder if anyone actually references their website before they just pry up the cover with a stray letter opener like I did?

I still can't get that canned beef flavor out of my mouth. No matter how hard I brush or how much coffee or tea I swish around my gums, I have visions of after-school cartoons dancing through my head and sauce-stained T-shirts in the hamper.

Rating: 3 / 5

Buy a can of Progresso Italian-Style Wedding Soup from Amazon.com: Consume!
Image from Amazon.com (I didn't get a can... I got the new Progresso Microwave soup bowl)