TV dinner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
TV Dinner (also called frozen dinner, microwave meal or ready meal) is a prepackaged, frozen meal which usually comes in a flat cardboard box. It requires very little preparation and contains all the elements for a single-serving meal. TV Dinner is the trademark for a brand of packaged meal developed in 1953 for C.A. Swanson & Sons (later acquired by the Campbell Soup Company in 1955). (The name in full was TV Brand Frozen Dinner). In informal usage, "TV Dinner" eventually became synonymous with any prepackaged dinner purchased frozen in a supermarket and heated at home. The original TV Dinner came in an aluminum tray and was heated in an oven. Most frozen food trays are now made of microwaveable material.
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[edit] History of the TV Dinner
The first TV Dinner was a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cornbread dressing, frozen peas and sweet potatoes[1] packaged in a single-compartment tray used at the time for airline food service. Each item was placed in its own compartment. The trays proved to be useful: the entire dinner could be removed from the outer packaging as a unit; the aluminum tray could be heated directly in the oven without any extra dishes; and one could eat the meal directly out of the same tray. The product was cooked for 25 minutes at 425°F (220°C) and fit nicely on a TV tray. The original TV Dinner sold for 98 cents, and had a production estimate of 5,000 dinners for the first year. Swanson far exceeded its expectations, and ended up selling more than 10 million of these dinners in the first year of production.
Much has changed since the first TV Dinners were marketed. For instance, a wider variety of entreés — such as fried chicken, salisbury steak and Mexican combinations — have been introduced. Competitors such as Banquet began offering prepackaged frozen dinners. Other changes include:
- 1960 – Swanson added desserts (such as apple cobbler and brownies) to a new four-compartment tray.
- 1969 – The first TV breakfasts were marketed (pancakes and sausage were the favorites). Great Starts Breakfasts and breakfast sandwiches (such as egg and Canadian bacon) followed later.
- 1973 – The first Swanson Hungry Man dinners were marketed; these were larger portions of its regular dinner products. "Mean" Joe Greene, football player, was its spokesman.
- 1986 – The first microwave oven-safe trays were marketed.
Modern day frozen dinners tend to come in microwave-safe containers. Product lines also tend to offer a larger variety of dinner types. These dinners, also known as microwave meals, can be purchased at almost every supermarket. They are stored frozen, then when it is time to prepare them, the plastic cover is removed or vented, and the meal is heated in a microwave oven for a few minutes. They are very convenient since they require no preparation time other than the heating, but they can be more expensive than preparing ingredients from scratch.
[edit] Invention of the TV Dinner
The identity of the TV Dinner's inventor has been disputed. In one account, first publicized in 1996,[2] retired Swanson executive Gerry Thomas said he conceived the idea after the company found itself with a huge surplus of frozen turkeys because of poor Thanksgiving sales. This account is still listed on the website of Pinnacle Foods, Swanson's newest owner.[3] Thomas' version of events has been challenged by the Los Angeles Times,[4] members of the Swanson family[5] and former Swanson employees.[6] They credit the Swanson brothers with the invention.
In any case, the concept wasn't original. In 1944, William L. Maxson's frozen dinners were being served on airplanes.[7] Other prepackaged meals were also marketed before Swanson's TV Dinner. In 1948, plain frozen fruits and vegetables were joined by what was then called 'dinner plates' with an entrée, potato, and vegetable. Later, in 1952, the first frozen dinners on oven-ready aluminum trays were introduced by Quaker States Foods under the One-Eye Eskimo label. Quaker States Foods was joined by other companies including Frigi-Dinner, which offered such fare as beef stew with corn and peas, veal goulash with peas and potatoes, and chicken chow mein with egg rolls and fried rice. However Swanson, a large producer of canned and frozen poultry in Omaha, Nebraska, was able to promote the widespread sales and adaption of frozen dinner by using its nationally recognized brand name with an extensive national marketing campaign nicknamed "Operation Smash" and the clever advertising name of "TV dinner," which tapped into the public's excitement around the new device.[8]
[edit] Health concerns
The freezing process tends to degrade the taste of food, and the meals are thus heavily processed with extra salt and fat to compensate. In addition, stabilizing the product for a long period of time typically means that companies will use hydrogenated vegetable oils, which are high in trans fats that can adversely affect cardiovascular health. The dinners are almost always significantly less nutritious than fresh food, and are formulated to remain edible after long periods of storage, thus often requiring preservatives such as BHT. There is, however, some variability between brands.[9]
In recent years there has been a push by a number of independent manufacturers and retailers to make meals that are low in salt, fat and free of artificial additives. Healthy Choice is one company that markets to the health conscious niche. In the UK, COOK Trading Limited, EazyCuizine and Chef On Board serve a similar niche but instead of selling through supermarkets they retail their products either over the internet, through their own retail stores or in farm shops.
A benefit of frozen dinners is that they are usually fully cooked during preparation, and only need to be reheated by the consumer. This eliminates the possibility of undercooking by misjudging microwave powers and cooking times. More recently, however, frozen dinners have been created that are designed to be used as a steamer, allowing rapid cooking of essentially raw ingredients (typically fish and vegetables) immediately before consumption.
[edit] Trivia
- The United Kingdom spends £5 million a day on microwave meals, and is the largest consumer of microwave meals in Europe. ,[10]
- TV Dinners were celebrated in a song of the same name by ZZ Top on the album Eliminator.
- Early TV Dinners featured the image of a radio set on the package.
- Swanson stopped using the name "TV Dinner" in 1962.
- Jacqueline Kennedy's love of "TV Dinners" was credited with increasing their sales during the 1960s.
- Allan Sherman's comic song "Hungarian Goulash No. 5" lists various national dishes and concludes:
Frenchmen eat a lot of bouillabaisse there.
Dutchmen eat a sauce called Hollandaise there.
Smorgasbord in Sweden is the winner.
In America it's TV dinner.
- Lou Reed's song of camp ennui, "Goodnight Ladies" mentions a TV dinner, which (in the context of the album Transformer) is probably a double-entendre.
[edit] References
- ^ Swanson TV Dinner FAQ
- ^ McMorris, Robert. "Gobbler Glut Spurs Dinners," Omaha World-Herald, May 10, 1996
- ^ Swanson 50th Anniversary Celebration 2. Pinnacle Food Brands Corporation (2003). Retrieved on 2006-12-31.
- ^ Rivenburg, Roy. "False tales of turkey on a tray", Los Angeles Times, 2005-07-31. Retrieved on 2006-12-31.
- ^ Rivenburg, Roy. "A landmark idea, yes, but whose?" Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23, 2003, p. E1
- ^ Library of Congress - Who “invented” the TV dinner?
- ^ Ross, Lillian. "Defrosted Dinners", The New Yorker, 1945-08-04.
- ^ Shapiro, Laura (2004), Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America, New York: Penguin Books, ISBN 014303491X
- ^ BBC Article - Choose your ready-meal carefully
- ^ "UK meals ‘ready’ for growth", Decision News Media SAS, 2003-11-21. Retrieved on 2006-12-31.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Swanson Foods Home page
- The British Library - business information on the frozen, chilled and ready made foods industry
- Gerry Thomas - BBC News obituary, published 21 July 2005
- Gerry Thomas - New York Daily News obituary, published 21 July 2005
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