IanHistory of TV Dinners
October 19th 2009 12:13
A TV dinner (also called frozen dinner, freezer meal, microwave meal, or ready meal) was first produced in 1953. The first Swanson-brand TV Dinner was produced in the United States and consisted of a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cornbread dressing, frozen peas and sweet potatoes packaged in a tray like those 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 (218 °C) and fit nicely on a TV tray table. 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. One reason how TV Dinners got their name was their early packaging featured the image of a TV set. Another reason would be that many families would eat these in front of a TV set.
Below are some images of early TV dinners. Do they look more or less appetising than today’s options?
*Images sourced from here.
**This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article for TV Dinner.
Swanson - English Style Fish'n'Chips
Swanson - Fried Chicken TV Dinner
Banquet - Salisbury Steak Dinner
Swanson - German Style Dinner
Banquet - Macaroni & Cheese Dinner
*Images sourced from here.
**This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article for TV Dinner.
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