Canned tomatoes are always sterilized and can be kept in storage for years without losing their sweetness. Pulp packed in 5–gallon cans is not sterilized and quite a after-sterilization percentage of it will lose much of its sweetness on being stored for six months, and after being stored a year still more is lost. It takes hundreds of pounds of expensive sugar to make up for this loss of sweetness when the pulp is made into soup. Sampling Of course, a cook is not infallible in his judgment as to just what is the right sweetness and he needs the co-operation of others at the factory. The factory manager should make it a point to sample the soup several times a day, and also to have others sample it. It is better to have it just a little less sweet than it should be than to have it too sweet. The consumer can always add a little sugar but cannot take any out. The third point mentioned above—that of uniform consistency and smoothness, will be discussed fully under the cooking and shaking processes. Proper Acidity I stated as the fourth point that the soup should not curdle fresh milk, even though no soda is added by the housewife. One of the favorite ways of preparing canned tomato soup in the home is to mix it with an equal quantity of hot milk. The experienced housewife knows enough to add a pinch of soda to the milk before adding the soup, and she may also know that she will get a smoother mixture if she slowly pours the soup into the milk, stirring constantly, than if she pours the milk into the soup. The inexperienced housewife does not know these things, and often she opens the can and mixes it with milk without reading the admonition on the label as to how the cream of tomato soup should be prepared. Sometimes she forgets to add the soda, or does not thoroughly dissolve it, or does not add enough of it, and then there is disappointment. In order to guard against such disappointments the soup canner should so prepare his product that curdling of the milk cannot occur under any method of mixing. The way to do this is to add enough soda to the soup to reduce the acidity to a point where it will not curdle fresh milk, whether the soup is poured into the milk or the milk into the soup. The canner can then print a notice on the label of the can to the effect that it is not necessary to add soda to this soup when preparing it as “cream of tomato,” as the soda is already in it.