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Whenever I watch football on TV it seems there is always a commercial showing athletes eating canned soup with expressions of ecstasy. The advertiser must have to pay these guys a pretty penny to keep them from spitting out the tasteless gruel as the camera rolls. More likely, the guys are able to smile because they aren't consuming the soup as it comes from the can, totally without zest or character of any kind. If they are actually scarfing the sponsor's product without making bad faces I suspect it has been worked over to the nth degree by real chefs who know how to season stuff.

I haven't found an edible can of soup on supermarket shelves in years even though I keep trying. I'm a Trader Joe's addict but I have to be honest and admit that even Joe's canned soup is pretty bad, so I hope the guys at Albertsons won't throw me out the next time I show up. Instead of blaming the people who sell these insipid soups or even the folks who make it I want to take a moment to abuse the health nuts among us who put table salt in the same category as cyanide. While I'm at it, I might as well vent my spleen on the so-called nutritionists who try to eliminate all fats and oils from our diets as well.

Salt has become an obscene four-letter word because it is supposed to raise blood pressure.  Since my blood pressure has been in the four-figure range for most of my life I'm pretty sparing with salt. I'm willing to assume that my doctor probably knows what he's talking about on this subject. Fortunately, I have learned that there are many things you can use to pep up food without loading it with salt. How come soupmakers don't know this? Whenever I make my world famous High Octane Bean Soup or my Gringo Chicken Tortilla Soup my wife and kids never complain about the sissy taste. They are more apt to be drenched in sweat before they are halfway through a bowl. Yet the salt content is almost non-existent. Put enough jalapeno peppers in anything and most people won't have a clue as to what other ingredients are missing.

Since I'm already boring you with my culinary complaints, bear with me while I carry on about low fat products. Author Nelson Algren once warned against eating at any place called Mom's. I have extended this advice to eating anything labeled low fat. Some of it isn't bad but you won't know until you try to eat it. My least favorite low fat item is ground beef. I always look for the packages with the highest fat content. In my opinion, the low fat meat turns into particle board as you cook it. When I make my exquisite hamburgers I always grill them so that the fat drips out. But while it's dripping away, the grease gives the burger a heavenly flavor without hanging around to clog your arteries.

No doubt you're outraged by my politically incorrect approach to cookery and I suspect you have excellent arguments to refute what I say. I don't want to hear from you about this so stop your sputtering.