Ketchup (Catsup) Soup – No Money Meal

In the 2004 Hollywood movie “The Terminal” (Starring Tom Hanks), a foreign traveler is stranded in an airport while his homeland is in the midst of a coup and he cannot legally leave the building. Without funds he resorts to raiding the food court condiment stand and initially subsists on free crackers loaded with the contents of the tomato ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and relish packets.

During the Great Depression it was common for folks to put a small amount of ketchup in a cup and add hot water to make ketchup soup. When possible, they would add cream or milk to make it more palatable and nutritious.

Most college students know that an 18 cent Top Ramen package can provide a variety of meals through different combinations – the noodles can be eaten uncooked with a texture similar to popcorn, the flavor packet can be added to hot water to make a broth, or you can combine them both as originally intended.

Recently I was stuck in a situation where no food or coffee was available but there was a hot water spout on a coffee brewer. I had some breath mints so I placed one in a cup and added hot water to it. I let it steep for about 10 minutes and ended up with a suitably satisfying beverage.

I’m sure that there are readers who have extensive experience in this field and I would like to invite your comments so that we can all learn more ways to be nourished and comforted in a stranded or desperate situation.

Bookmark and Share

4 thoughts on “Ketchup (Catsup) Soup – No Money Meal

  1. A business near us has posted that they were putting together classes for suvival workshops in the fall, here in the mountains;I thought it may be of interest to you, Carolina readiness supply Inc Waynesville N.C. !

  2. An age old recipe! Done this many a time when needing a quick snack.

    There is a problem with some modern foods though – they may not be REAL food.

    Case in point is the high fructose corn syrup that is in many items these days, including ketchup. That stuff is poisonous and responsible for many of the health problems people have today.

    Also, is Ramen really food? Last year I threw a dish-full outdoors and it is still there. No animals have eaten it! They do not recognize the stuff as food!

  3. Here is a old recipe from my grandma in the old country.

    Poor Man’s Spaghetti Sauce:
    Heat up a little (bacon) fat, slightly brown a teaspoon of onion, sprinkle with flour, add 1/2 cup of water and ketchup to taste.
    It’s not half bad and a great way to clean out the almost empty ketchup bottle.

    We have freeze dried onions and tomato powder from http://www.srmarketplace.com in our long term food storage so we’ll be having a variation of poor man’s pasta a LOT when TSHTF.

  4. on time i went to some kind of outside museum with my family and there i learned how to make some nice tea.
    the things you need are:
    honey blossom (not necesarry or replaceable by honey)
    mint(not necesarry or replaceable by a pepermint)
    stinging nettle

    just put the amount that you like in a pot and boil it till it’s nice and warm.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Current ye@r *