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Homemade Tomato Soup

I was reminded yesterday that if a recipe (or a laboratory procedure) calls for something unusual, that makes you go: "hmm, Why is that in there?"  It is probably in there for a good reason.

"Milk" by Zeyus Media is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I was trying to make tomato soup with just tomato paste, here in the quarantine world.  I could only find tomato paste in the pantry.  I found recipes for tomato soup from tomato paste, both called for adding baking soda.  It seemed really odd and my chemistry background couldn't really see a need for it.

...I realized after making the recipe, 1 can of tomato paste + 4 cans of milk, that the baking soda was there to keep the acid of the tomato paste from coagulating the milk.  I ended up with a tasty, but lumpy soup.

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