The first TV dinners were invented in 1953. Someone at Swanson severely overestimated the amount of turkey Americans would consume that Thanksgiving. With 260 tons of frozen birds to get rid of, a company salesman named Gerry Thomas ordered 5,000 aluminum trays, recruited an assembly line of women armed with spatulas and ice-cream scoops and began creating mini-feasts of turkey, corn-bread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes - creating the first-ever TV dinner. Thomas later said he got the idea from neatly packaged airplane food.
2 comments:
I'm glad someone thought of it cause I sure eat my share of them. It's easier than cooking for one sometimes.
Oh gosh, I remember having them when we were kids, not all that often but a few times. I wonder how much they were then; here lately I've seen Swanson dinners for a buck or a bit more or 4 f/ $5. I bought a few the other day and while I didn't hate them, was astounded at the sodium, fat and carbs in them. I sometimes buy the Swiss steak or turkey cutlets for the meat part of a dinner, but will steam some fresh veggies.
The worst thing I remember about them I touched on in the post; you could burn your mouth on one part and another would be still frozen solid. I noticed that in the TV dinners I bought the other day that I had to peel back certain parts and stop the cooking to stir, PLUS have to let them set for a while....that's prob. because they had lawsuits from people burning their mouths.
And chicken pot pies...haven't had one of those in years and years, grew to hate them because they def. were mouth-scorchers.
I get the Hormel "cupboard" dinners now 'n then; they're fairly cheap and somewhat nourishing. I dislike the ones w/ mashed potatoes, preferring the turkey w/ dressing or scalloped potatoes.
It's not that hard to scrounge up *something* to eat f/ lunch or supper, but breakfast is the real stumper for me. W/out cooking eggs and bacon/ham, I'm pretty much limited to oatmeal and even that's got a lot of carbs. I had some PB on a few crackers this morning f/ "brunch". Good as anything, I reckon.
Thanks for reading and posting, sis!
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