Heinz Minestrone Soup - 400g

Heinz soup sits in the same corner of British food as beans on toast. It is not glamorous and does not try to be, and it gets opened far more often than anything cooked from scratch. Tomato gets the headlines, but minestrone has its own loyal crowd: the people who like a bit more going on in the bowl.

In Canada, people go looking for it because the taste is fixed in memory. The UK recipe is the one they grew up on, and a soup that familiar is hard to shake once you have moved an ocean away.

It comes in a standard 400g tin, which is one hungry person or two with plenty of bread. It waits in the cupboard quite happily until a grey afternoon calls for it. Pour it into a pan, heat it through and serve it with toast, a crusty roll or a cheese sandwich for dipping.

Hardly anyone stops at one tin. It tends to go in the basket alongside Heinz Cream of Tomato, a few tins of Beanz and whatever else the cupboard at home always had.