Cream-of-X soups literally give me an upset stomach. Or, more accurately, upset bowels. I don’t know if it’s all the sodium, or MSG, or what, but I’ll spend the next 30 minutes in the bathroom, so we’ve eliminated them in our cooking. We never used much anyway, but when I was a young bachelor a can of c-o-mushroom and a can of tomato soup was the base for my beef stew.
So what exactly is ‘real cooking’ to you? Do you milk your own cows and separate the cream and make your own butter for your cream sauce? Do you slaughter your own meat and cut your own roasts and steaks? If you don’t you are still using ready-made things in your cooking. Why is using other ready-made things not real cooking? As long as they are used in small quantities, I think using them is every bit of real cooking.
Well, if it’s cooking when I toss some chicken pieces and seasonings and noodles in a pot of water and heat it up, why isn’t it cooking when I toss other stuff together with soup and heat that up? Is it because the first option takes longer/is more work/makes a bigger mess?
Honestly, this notion that cooking has to reach certain benchmarks to be “real” drives me straight up the freaking wall, as do people who sneer at “cheater” ingredients like canned soups. I want people to cook, especially people who are just starting out and scared of the whole process. For those folks, throwing some stuff together, stirring in some soup, and heating it up is already a decent bit of effort and risk. Every night they make “cream of glop” casserole with Velveeta is a night they’re in the kitchen gaining a little confidence, and a night they’re not in the McDonald’s drive-through. Having that poo-pooed because it would be soooo much better if they used these other ingredients instead makes me rather stabby.
All that said, we pretty much never use cream of anything soup, partly because neither of us ever thinks to buy them. Since they’re never just hanging around in the pantry, we can’t just grab a can to throw into a quick dish. Although there’s a purveyor of such things just up the street, I can make a bechamel just as quickly as I can go buy a can of soup, so there’s not really a lot of point.
For home cooking, I see no problem using these kinds of soups as a base for a dish. To be honest, I actually like them quite a bit. I’ll eat Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom for lunch on cold winter days.
They do have the potential to be salty. Most of the time, you’re adding it to something that can handle the salt, so I don’t see a problem. (It’s like one of my Food TV pet peeves: “Add 2 tbsp of unsalted butter to 1 cup of low-sodium chicken broth. Now add 1 tsp of salt.” Seriously?!)
I would probably not serve something like this in a restaurant, but when I want the flavor of Cream of Mushroom, there’s no point in spending half an hour reproducing something that doesn’t have the same flavor just so I can pretend it’s superior.
It’s lazy cooking, and doesn’t taste as good as scratch. Making bechamel isn’t that hard. Having said that, every now and then I get a hankering for rice and chicken cooked in condensed cream of mushroom soup.
It’s convenient and fine for a weeknight. I would consider it lazy for something like a holiday dinner or if you are cooking for guests.
My quick meals use other types of short cuts that probably some folks find silly. I’ll happily use jarred pasta sauce or frozen meatballs for quick dinners, for example. Many folks would say “but it’s do easy to make fresh sauce, blah blah blah”. And they’re right! 
but for me, it’s an acceptable short cut.
Something about cream o’ soup isn’t appealing to me, but I don’t begrudge other people’s shortcuts. We all use our own.
My husband grew up on a hog farm and they also raised chickens and had a cow for family use. So I have participated in those things as well as butchering wild game and cleaning wild fish.
The difference in taste, texture and appearance is large enough to be appreciable. But I’d never say that someone who didn’t do those things isn’t “really” cooking. We all know it’s not practical for most of today’s cooks to do this. Even farm wives often work out of the home today.
I guess I’d call real cooking using whole foods (unprocessed) as much as possible. I think that’s a fairly healthy approach.
Does that mean no processed food? I think that would be a bit boring. We’ve all got our favorite not-so-healthy foods and techniques.
How would you classify ham, bacon and sausage?
I think most people understand what is meant by “processed food” in a thread like this.
Prosciutto is processed, and has more salt than cream of mushroom soup. Is it cheating to cook with prosciutto?
I beg to differ - but this is one of those topics that get me nuts and I don’t want to get out of line, so let me just say this - I am NOT a “lazy cook” - far from it - and there are a lot of meals that I make for MY family that wouldn’t be the same without those “horrible” condensed soups and would taste WORSE if I didn’t use them and substituted “from scratch” ingredients. I’d have a mutiny. Frankly this kind of food snobbishness is insulting.
Sattua, please don’t take this personally, I mean it to everyoen in general, but I am quoting you because your post is the closest. In THAT way I’m lazy. 
I read this topic as “How do you feel about recipes with condemned soup?”
Yeah, I think it’s “cheating”. But then, I don’t cook often, so I never have to whip up a nice tasty meal quickly.
exprofessional kitchen drone here, and I agree heartily - there is nothing wrong with whatever gets you into a kitchen and out of the drive through.
To make your homemade goodies taste like you did use a canned soup, add a dollop of vegemite - the flavor you are missing is the yeasty byproduct, it is added for the umami flavor profile. I found that one of the neighborhood kids refused homemade beef stew because it didn’t taste right, but if I added vegemite it added that flavor to the stew. I figured it out when I was dunking vegemited toast in a bowl of soup and then finished off the soup. Doesn’t add that metal taste from the can, but I think canning it would need to be done for that 
Accent/MSG works just as well. My wife especially likes that MSG-y profile, so I keep a container of it close at hand.
I don’t use a lot of cream-of soups, but I keep a few on hand for quick casseroles, etc. Another caregiver I work with makes the most awesome comfort foods, and her main ingredients are cream-of soups, Velveeta, and Minute Rice. Just like Momma’s! Now I know why my food tends to be so different from what I had growing up.
I keep some cans of cream of chicken soup in the house, it doesn’t really have any flavor of it’s own, but I can use it to make a quick gravy in a pinch
I use it for broccoli and chicken casserole (chicken divan or however it’s spelled). Tastes fine with rice.
My brother, who is a chef, made us a similar recipe using “real” cream soup that he made himself. It took him the better part of a day to make it. It was really good, of course, but there’s something about the taste of Campbell’s cream soup that I find comforting.
And I don’t think using canned soup automatically means you’re a lazy cook either.
I like them processed the old fashioned way. The fewer ingredients, the better, other than seasonings. If I want something good I drive out of town to a small-town butcher. The bacon’s thicker, the ham isn’t full of water and has a good real smoked crust on it and of the several good butcher shops I use each has its own special sausage recipes.
I have also made my own Italian and potato sausage links. No preservatives.
Actually when I typed that I was thinking in terms of vegetables, soups, hot dishes and the amount of extraneous ingredients that are necessary when you buy them pre-made.