Why Warhol painted soup cans

In 1962, Andy Warhol exhibited his famous Campbell's Soup Cans paintings for the first time and cemented his place as a Pop Art powerhouse. Previously, Warhol had bridged his commercial and fine art efforts with paintings based on comic strips and advertisements, but he (rightly) felt that style had already been done by Lichtenstein and others. So why soup cans? Smithsonian has the story in an excerpt from Blake Gopnik's new book Warhol. From Smithsonian:

Warhols final breakthrough into 60s Pop came through an accidental inspiration from a minor dealer on the New York scene named Muriel Latow. She was a flamboyant decorator, three years younger than Warhol, and had hopes of becoming a serious art dealer. Latow has gone down in history as Pop Arts most important, if accidental, muse. As the story is toldin one of its many, mostly incompatible versionsLatow went to a dinner at Warhols house in the fall of 61 to console him for having been one-upped by Oldenburg and Lichtenstein and others. The cartoon paintings...its too late, Warhol is supposed to have said. Ive got to do something that really will have a lot of impact, that will be different enough from Lichtenstein. He begged his guests for ideas, and Latow came up with one, but wouldnt deliver until Warhol handed over a check for $50. Youve got to find something thats recognizable to almost everybody, she said. Something you see every day that everybody would recognize. Something like a can of Campbells Soup.