Campbell’s tomato soup is being tinkered with. The salt content is being reduced, but not to worry, says Campbell, which promises to retain that same great taste, through the “leveraging” of its “proprietary flavor enhancements.”
I hate tinkering. I especially hate flavor enhancements, which could possibly be the salty thymus glands of sardines or something. I sort of figured that the unwashed masses would rise up as one and protest the tomato soup tinkering with such fervor that Campbell’s would retreat faster than you can microwave a can of tomato soup.
So far, no news. The inevitable lurch toward tinkering goes on. It’s not so much the threat to the flavor of the soup that has me upset. Mrs. Campbell never intended for the basic tomato soup product to be gourmet.
And I long ago discovered the real genius of Campbell’s tomato soup. You can do anything to it you want.
It is the ideal platform for all manner of onion relish or Tabasco or soy sauce or 100-proof vodka or almost anything else you wanted to pour on it or in it. A little less salt? No problem. That can be fixed at the consumer end, nutritionists be damned.
No, I simply have a philosophical objection to corporate tinkering with the perfect, with the comfortable, with what has already been blessed by Cohen as Grade A.
Tinkering Not Allowed
Imagine if the Hartford Business Journal decided to tinker with its columnist lineup, substituting Cohen twice a month with a sex-advice column?
You’d be a lot dumber, even if you had a smile on your face. What if Travelers decided to replace its umbrella with a raincoat, to tinker with the kind of coverage marketing it offered? Awful.
Hartford Financial Services is tinkering with its product mix, variously putting its property-casualty, life insurance, and annuity stuff up for sale. A terrible bit of tinkering from a comprehensive kind of financial services joint.
Better to slaughter the stag, barbeque it, and serve it for lunch in the cafeteria, to save money on gruel.
The City of Hartford tinkered with its form of governance, replacing the city manager form with a “strong mayor” — at least in theory. Not a very successful tinker.
Northwest Airlines keeps tinkering with its actual or theoretical direct flights to Amsterdam from Bradley Sort of International Airport.
Some months it’s there, some months it’s canceled; some months, you can get over there and find yourself stranded. Too much tinkering.
It’s going on all over. In an effort to tinker with its “abstinence-only” sex education policy in Pittsburgh, the city created a program that will talk about contraceptives, but won’t offer any to the students.
This is tinkering that falters, when the rubbers hit the road, so to speak.
I put my money where my mouth is. I’m the proud owner of the 2005 Buick Park Avenue — the last of its breed. We Park Avenue owners are, on average, 86 years old, and we love our Park Avenues because GM almost never tinkered with them.
No rearview mirror compass to tell me which direction I’m driving to buy tomato soup.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
