I am of the generation that can’t not immediately get an image of the iconic Campbell's brand can in my mind’s eye whenever I hear the words ‘tomato soup.’ Truly, we grew up on it, and for a kid it’s not half bad. But we did grow up and I forgot all about tomato soup—the world was just way more interesting than that.

I don't recollect where I was when I first had a ‘cream’ soup thickened with rice, but it was a revelation. It brought my grown-up tastes back to tomato soup and taught me what I had been missing.

As with any dish featuring tomatoes the quality of the dish is contingent on the quality of the tomatoes. Best is fresh-picked heirlooms, and fresh-picked whatever-else is next best. Then in descending order of wonderful: those same tomatoes canned at home, good canned tomatoes from the store, and, in last place and way behind the pack, any ordinary ‘fresh’ tomato—cultivated for toughness, picked green, and shipped cold—in the produce department. If the tomatoes you have available aren't quite up to flavor, add a little tomato paste. But not too much.

This trick of using rice to replace the cream works with any cream-of-[insert vegetable here] soup. It takes very little rice, and produces a richly satisfying soup without masking any of your chosen vegetable’s flavor. Naturally, we have tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. (More on revisiting that childhood favorite another time.)