Ketchup soup is the soup of choice for the
indigent, the
out-of-work, and the
college stoner who's already blown through his weekly
trust fund allotment.
It's exactly what it says on the tin. One noted fictitious example of the dish in action occurs in the 1970 film
Getting Straight, wherein poverty-line grad student Harry Bailey, played by a relatively young
Elliott Gould, makes a cup of the stuff from various ingredients available for free from the university cafeteria while meeting with his bemused older thesis adviser. Not so amusingly,
this anti-poverty ad portrays a woman stealing ketchup packets from various places to make ketchup soup to keep her kids from going hungry. In the ad, the kids don't like the soup -- which is actually a bit odd since ketchup soup can be made quite tasty with the right bits of flair, and is a sweet soup, so you'd think kids would go for it over a lot of more conventional soups. But not the healthiest thing, naturally.
In any event, the recipe is about the most simple one out there.
You'll want about four to six packets of ketchup per cup of water (or about an ounce to an ounce and a half), depending on how strong you want it.
Put the water into a pot. Empty the ketchup packets into the water. Heat just to a boil, stirring constantly.
Add salt and pepper (coincidentally equally freely available) to taste.
I've heard tell of folks adding, for extra variety, one of those little packets of butter of the kind that you usually get with dinner rolls, or even a packet of salad dressing where such is available as well.
Naturally, if you've got vegetables you can slice some up and add those in as well.
And that's that.