WTF. Cold soup.

I was actually going to take a pass reviewing this Gazpacho Soup from Fresh and Easy. The reason is that I’m not a huge fan of cold soups in general. To me, cold soup is like winning a weekend date with Gillian Anderson and not being able to ask her if Mulder ever touched her boobies on the X-Files. I mean, what’s the point?

But I know a lot of folks (and little green men) actually like chilled soups. All this Borscht B.S., Summer Squash Soup stupidity and veritably vain Vichyssoise, just leaves me… well, cold.

I think it may also be a guy thing. Most of the fans of cold soups that I know seem to be gals. However, it could also be that I’m an uncultured, unpasteurized (put me out to pasture already), Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer living in a 21st century cold soup world.

That actually sounds more like it, grunt grunt.

But you know what, I’ll give it a go. I’ll pretend to be one of the highly cultured, cold soup loving, non-caveman lawyers living in Beverly Hills making beaucoup moolah defending New Wave grafitti “artistes” who use their “lower appendages” to paint. Man, this city I live in is great…

Actually, this Fresh & Easy Gazpacho Soup (I think Fresh & Easy must hate me, for I have never given a “normal” review on any of their products), wasn’t half bad. Actually, it wasn’t half good either, but that’s a problem for Glass Half Full Psychologists to solve.

I’m actually a gazpacho newbie; the whole cold soup phobia has definitely hindered my appreciation of it. But basically, it’s a cold, tomato-based Spanish soup that incorporates fresh veggies and is usually eaten with hard bread. It’s right around here that I would like to make a Pixies joke or reference, but experience has taught me that most of my readers (no offense to ya’ll) wouldn’t know alternative or indie music if it bit them in the butt. It’s OK, I confess that I have to remain ignorantly mute whenever conversation turns to who’s on American Idol, or pretty much any popular music on the “radio”.

Beyond that, I can only guess at what it’s supposed to taste like. The funny thing is, this gazpacho tastes just like salsa to me. This gaz’ had a very, very strong garlic taste. It was more like garlicpacho. It had a blend of tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and red bell peppers. I believe that it would have tasted a little better with more emphasis on the cucumbers and less on the onions. The cucumber slices tasted slightly pickled, but I guess that’s to be expected since that’s usually what happens when you put cucumbers in salted liquids. The onions were still a bit crunchy, which might bother some people. There wasn’t enough red bell pepper action to really notice.

Overall, the taste was just too strong for me. I think I could deal with the overpowering garlic, but the soup itself was just so acidic, vinegary and there was too much sugar in it. It could also use a hit of spice - it was pretty much silent on the capsicum front. I squirted some Tapatio in to it, much to the delight of my spicy taste buds. Hot sauce definitely made this more edible.

The price is pretty consistent with deli style fresh soups from most places - F&E has a bunch of these different deli soups, some that are quite good (and thankfully, not all are meant to be eaten cold). They’ll usually run you $2.50 to $3.50 for about 22 ounces, unless they happen to be on sale. I think it’s a little expensive, especially for soup that I’m not so enamored of.

In conclusion, I wouldn’t buy this again, unless I did become a highly cultured, cold soup loving, non-caveman lawyer living in Beverly Hills making beaucoup moolah defending New Wave grafitti “artistes” who use their “lower appendages” to paint. But I think gazpacho would be the last of my worries if that did happen.

Price: $2.50 for 22 oz.
Found At: Fresh & Easy
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10

[Editor’s Note: Yes, I do like Gillian Anderson. And The Pixies. But not cold soup. Or Andalusian dogs.]