I have a fondness for those little packets of dehydrated soup that you dump into a mug and then reconstitute with hot water. In my non-vegetarian childhood my favorite was Lipton's Ring Noodle. I liked to drink off the salty broth and then eat the drained noodle rings with a spoon. Recently I got attached to the Spring Vegetable flavor, which came with little bits of dried carrots and things, and short little noodles, which I consumed in the selfsame way. I have an electric kettle in my office and found a nice mug of Salty Noodly Liquid to be just the thing around three or four o'clock.

Too soon, alas, it disappeared from the shelves. I think these days almost everyone else has switched over to the soups that come in paper cups, but I find them an unsatisfactory substitute. They're much bulkier to store, and are generally more food and less salty beverage. I want my dubious instant soup to come out of a packet and that's that. I searched the internet for a new source or an alternative, but had no luck. Fortunately S. was cleverer than I, and discovered that the Commonwealth term for this kind of thing seems to be "soup for a cup". What's more, Amazon was selling some fairly promising looking vegetarian ones produced by a company with the supremely unappetizing name of ORGRAN. It's your organic grandma's orgasmic organ! Mmmmm, don't you wish you had some right now?

Anyhow, I promptly ordered two cases, one mixed vegetable and one sweetcorn. No noodles, alas, as ORGRAN seems to specialize in being all things to all vegan, gluten-free, lipidless people, but I tried a packet of the corn and chive variety today and found it good. Well, "good," anyway -- this sort of thing only bears a passing resemblance to actual food, I realize -- but I liked it.

I wouldn't mind finding other brands and varieties, though. Know of any?