If there ’s a single , quintessential food tradition that reveal something about the American lifestyle , it might just be the TV dinner . It ’s dim-witted and egalitarian – for the price of one of those fancycoffeedrinks , you get a full meal , including meat or domestic fowl , tater , a vegetable and a dessert . It ’s convenient , because you’re able to seize one from the freezer and cook the whole shebang at once in a single tray , either in a ceremonious oven or a microwave oven . It takes just a minute to open up the package , which is everlasting for a nation of hoi polloi who seem constantly on the go . And proficient of all , the fiddling tray is idealistic for eating in front of the television stage set , or at your desk at work . So it ’s not surprising that Americans typically eat TV dinners six times each calendar month , and expend $ 7.9 billion each year on the frozen , prepackaged repasts [ sources : Caplan , Lempert ] .
The TV dinner party is such a hallowed American institution , in fact , that as the Apollo 8 astronauts hurtle dwelling fromlunarorbit in December 1968 , they tell the public by radio that they were celebrating Christmas by eat TV dinner lend to them by Santa [ source : United Press International ] .
You ’d be tempted to cerebrate that the Pilgrims bring boob tube dinners with them on the Mayflower , but in reality , the TV dinner is a comparatively modern invention . Clarence Birdseye first came up with a quick way to freeze food in 1926 , and the first stock-still dinner was commercialize on a large scale in the mid-1950s [ source : Library of Congress ] . But like most other thing in our trend - loving culture , the canonic telly dinner party has gone through considerable phylogenesis over the X . Here ’s a tone at 10 innovations that continue to please our roof of the mouth .
10: The Compartmentalized Tray
One of the fundamental feature of speech of a traditional TV dinner party is the compartmentalized tray , which neatly separates the various food in the pre - cooked repast and maintain them from run together and forming an unappealing heap when you reheat them . The first such tray seems to have been developed for economic consumption on United Airlines back in 1937 , for the first kitchen on an aeroplane .
Around 1945 , Maxson Food Systems create the first flash-frozen three - class meal that tally into such a tray . Maxson start provide those meals to Pan American Airways , along with a convection oven specially design for use on airplane [ source : Smith ] .
From there , though , the origin fib of TV dinner stick a spot mirky . In 1946 , Maxson marketed a consumer interpretation of its airline repast - in - a - tray , the Strato Meal , in a grocery store in New Jersey . It came on a compartmentalized tray made of cardboard [ source : Nickerson ] . A few geezerhood after , Pittsburgh - based entrepreneurs Albert and Meyer Bernstein marketed a interchangeable product , but in analuminumtray . It was sold only in Pittsburgh , but was a big success , move 400,000 unit in 1950 . The Bernsteins went on to found Quaker State Food Corp. [ germ : Bortner ] .
But both of those manufacturers became also - rans in 1954 , when C.A. Swanson & Sons , a Nebraska - based poultry processor , started marketing its version of the repast - in - a - tray . In some accounts , Swanson sales executive Gerry Thomas got the divine guidance after flying on Pan Am and check the airline business ’s trays . One of Swanson ’s sound motion was to call its production a " TV Dinner " and put it in a package plan to look like a television circle – a gambit to capitalise on the growing popularity of the comparatively young engineering science . By 1956 , Swanson was king of the television set dinner , selling 13 million of them per twelvemonth , thanks to a massive TV marketing drive and a lower - price ware ( 20 penny a repast versus Quaker State ’s 98 penny a meal ) [ source : Bortner ] . Today , one of Swanson ’s trays is kept in the Smithsonian Institution ’s compendium [ source : Smith ] .
9: Other Entrees Besides Turkey
When Swanson began marketing the TV dinner in 1954 , it start off with a single edition check chopped Republic of Turkey . According to Andrew F. Smith ’s " The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink , " the poultry processor pick turkey because it had an glut of the hiss , thanks to its practice of guaranteeing farmers a set leverage price for any turkey that they get up for the company . Swanson executive director Gerry Thomas sound out originally this policy had been institute to make certain that Swanson did n’t execute out of product during theThanksgivingseason , but by the fifties , farmers had produced so many birds , the ship’s company had 1000 of pound of meat make a motion across the country in refrigerated railcars because it did n’t have enough cold computer memory warehouse infinite [ reference : Smith ] .
Therefrigeratedrailcar story has since been challenged , and in a 2003 interview , Thomas depict it as a " metaphor " [ seed : Rivenberg ] . But one fact is indisputable : After the turkey idiot box dinner became a huge winner , the company apace introduced versions containing fried chicken or beef pot roast , along with pea plant , corn sautéed in butter , potato and windfall [ source : Pittsburgh Press , Youngstown Vindicator ] .
Many of the former Swanson ’s recipes were devise by a young employee key Betty Cronin , who actually was a bacteriologist rather than a chef . But that was OK , because many of her challenge involved retrieve way of life to keep foods make it the freeze , depot and reheating outgrowth . For instance , she labour long and hard to prepare a fried poulet recipe with breading that would n’t fall off when it was frozen or become greasy upon reheating , and still try honorable enough to deplete – with the same cookery metre as its two sides [ informant : William Ewart Gladstone ] . Quite a feat .
8: The Folding TV Table
In the 1950s , not everyone had a goggle box , so it was not uncommon to come up 10 or so people get together around one band . So how would they wipe out those rattling TV dinner ? Early frosty meal came in trays made of aluminum – a alloy which conducts heat really well . People could n’t just set them in their overlap , unless they wanted to put on the line getting burned in a particularly painful way .
Fortunately , a resolution already existed to that dilemma . Folding table had probably been around for a long meter , but in 1946 , a Los Angeles inventor named Henry V. Gaudette applied for a letters patent for a unexampled , improved version , with rotating legs that could be ground in an hug drug shape under the tray . Not only was that form more stiff and stable than previous folding tables , but when the board was collapse , it was completely flat , which made it promiscuous to store [ sourceGaudette ] .
Gaudette ’s invention was ideal for eating while watch TV , and by the other fifties – even before Swanson present the television dinner – cheap alloy versions of the folding tray mesa were being advertised in paper . A 1955 ad in the St. Petersburg Times gas a TV snack table , offered for a steal price of $ 1.67 , that was " idealistic for your TV guests " and get along in a stain - resistant enameled design with a selection of three cosmetic patterns [ generator : St. Petersburg Times ] .
7: Dessert Joins the Meal
Initially , TV dinners just include the basic compounding of centre , Solanum tuberosum and vegetable . As novel as these quick - for - action meals were in their earliest years , your average sweet-scented tooth recognize that there was something missing : sweet .
The trouble was , those desserts required at least some separate preparation . And that was a trouble , because asneuroscientistslater discovered , once these goggle box - dinner party - loving Americans sat down in front of their idiot box Set with their aluminum tray , the alpha mind moving ridge stimulate by the TV programming stimulate them to slip into a state of passiveness and reduced consciousness [ source : Potter ] . That probably tend to make it tough for them to rise up and get a portion of pud or a slice of pie , even if they had a craving for a scratch rush .
Swanson initially hear marketing a separate frozen fruit Proto-Indo European product design to be baked while fire up a TV dinner party [ seed : Schenectady Gazette ] . But eventually , in the early sixties , the company tot a quaternary space in the tray that was occupy with a portion of apple or cherry tree deep-dish pie or else a umber pixy [ sources : Rosenberg , Andrews ] . These dessert could be serve well red-hot , and would n’t dry out or cauterise , when heated in the oven at the same 425 degrees F ( 218 speed of light ) for 25 moment as the rest of the dinner .
6: TV Breakfasts
Since Americans immediately loved the convenience of TV dinner party , it in all probability was inevitable that " ready meal " for other time of the sidereal day would issue . One obvious prey of chance was breakfast . Pre - sweeten breakfast cereal were introduced in the 1940s , and Pop - Tarts , the first toaster pastry dough , in 1964 [ source : Smith ] .
Frozen breakfast food may have begun with the Dorsa brothers , a triplet of enterpriser from San Jose , Calif. , who devised a waffle - cook machine in the 1930s and began marketing what finally became the Eggo brand of glacial waffles , in 1953 [ source : National Archives , Stephey ] . Eggo is now have by the Kellogg Co.
The first full - fledge , multi - item frozen breakfast probably was marketed in 1969 , when Swanson – by then , have by Campbell Soup – innovate a line of dayspring meals . They came in three diverseness : flannel-cake and blimp patties ; scrambled eggs with a sausage patty and fried potatoes ; and Gallic goner with – you guessed it – sausage balloon patties . Swanson ’s marketing run pushed the idea that TV breakfast restored " the forget repast " that housewife had been omit to prepare for their families [ source : Dougherty ] .
5:Dinners for Dieters
Absent - mindedly shoveling a fried chicken TVdinnerinto your back talk while you observe " Two and a Half Men " is a convenient way to make full your venter . But it is n’t all that great for the waistline . That job was exacerbated in the 1970s when idiot box dinner - Maker began offer supersized portions to appeal to the voracious manly appetency – meal that could exceed 1,000 large calorie and 70 per centum of the daily recommended allowance for adipose tissue in a individual answer [ source : Men ’s Health ] .
But help for dieter come in the mid-1980s , after ConAgra chair Charles M. Harper stomach a heart attack that landed him in intensive upkeep . Once Harper got out of the hospital , he took a hard look at his own lifestyle , and gave up the slabs of roast boeuf and hot fudge sundaes that he once know . But he also realized that the changes he was making might resonate with health - witting consumers . He launch the Healthy Choice line of low - fat , low - salt , low - calorie fixed dinner .
They were n’t the first such products , but they were the first successful ones . By the early nineties , Healthy Choice product had more than $ 350 million in one-year sales , and accounted for 10 pct of the entire fixed dinner market – about the same share as the brand holds today . Lean Cuisine , another wellness - conscious blade , lead the undivided - serve fixed dinner market with 20.7 percent of grocery share in 2012 [ sources : Hall , Newman ] .
4:Microwavable Plastic Trays
former telly dinners were less labor - intensive than cooking from scratch , but they were n’t the ultimate in prompt gratification , since it still take 25 minutes or so to re - inflame them in the oven . That eventually would change , thanks to scientist ' invention during World War II of themagnetron , an negatron tube-shaped structure that improved the potentiality of radar systems to spot Nazi aircraft .
A Raytheon engineer identify Percy LeBaron Spencer was working on improving radar technology when he note that themicrowavesgiven off by the magnetron had mellow out a confect Browning automatic rifle in his pouch . In 1945 , Raytheon filed a patent of invention for a microwave cooking process , and eventually license the engineering to the Tappan Stove Company . In 1955 , Tappan introduce the first home microwave oven . But it was n’t until the mid-1970s , when the oven became small and more low-priced , that they started to catch on . By 1986 , a tail of American homes possess microwave oven , and 90 percentage have them today [ source : Ganapati ] .
The potential of microwave oven ovens was n’t suffer upon glacial dinner manufacturers . But the old - fashioned atomic number 13 trays were a no - go for microwaving , since electric current would be conducted through the metal , and give off sparks that maybe could start a fervency . In 1986 , Campbell Soup ’s Frozen Food Division , which owned Swanson , retired the atomic number 13 tray for all 61 varieties of its frozen dinner , and replace them with containers made of polyethylene terephthalate , or PET – the sameplasticused in soda bottles [ rootage : Kircheimer ] .
While some people venerate a tie between charge card and malignant neoplastic disease , Harvard Medical School says not to worry . The U.S. Food and Drug Administration nearly regulates the promotional material of microwavable food , and necessitate manufacturer to shew that the amount of charge card that percolate into the solid food is less than 1/100th of the amount per pound of eubstance weight shown to harm science laboratory animal over a lifetime [ source : Harvard Family Health Guide ] .
3: The Crisping Sleeve
microwave reduced tv set dinner cooking metre to five or so minutes , and brought convenience - loving , perpetually - in - a - hurriedness Americans one footprint closer to immediate gratification . But they still had to put up with certain dining formality , such as using aknifeand fork . But what if you could eliminate all those extras , and just strip dinner party mighty down to the primal economic consumption experience , as if you were a latter - day caveman erode on a hunk of roast mastodont , with nary a worry ?
Ergo , the phenomenal appeal of hand - held glacial quick meals such as Hot Pockets . The famed " Hot Pocket " is a microwaveable frosty overturn containing meat and cheeseflower , evolve in the early 1980s by Paul and David Merage and their father Andre , an Iranian émigré family who resettle in southerly California [ reference : Hot Pockets , Massachusetts Institute of Technology ] . Hot Pockets have become such a manful dietary staple that former - night telecasting server Jimmy Fallon and his house band , the Roots , perform an ode titled " We Love Hot Pockets " on his show in 2010 [ source : Brion ] .
The technical secret behind the emanation of such frosty bridge player - nurse meals – like testicle rolls , panini , enchiladas and the ever - popular corn blackguard – is the packaging itself , which is constructed of paper or cardboard and laminate with a metalized film called asusceptor , which convert microwave energy to radiant heat and allows the food to brownish [ root : Inline Packaging ] . The first so - called crisping sleeve ostensibly was patent by Minneapolis inventor William A. Brastad back in 1981 [ source : Brastad ] .
2: Steam Cooking
To be sure , there are still plenty of TV dinner aficionado who ’ll hungrily scarf down a Salisbury steak , mashed potatoes and burnt umber pixie , and then coldcock those green beans into the rubbish . But these years , there ’s also a new contemporaries of health - conscious ready repast consumers who relish the thought of chomping on some nutritionally rich veggies . Microwave cooking , as it ferment out , in all probability uphold more of the proficient stuff ( think vitamin C , etc . ) than stave - top stewing , because the microwave muscularity penetrates the food more quickly , resulting in shorter preparation times ( too much passion tends to destroy nutrient ) [ reference : Ferrari ] . The trouble , though , is that the veggies lean to get all dry out and yucky .
That ’s why a technology call microwave oven steaming , make grow in the mid-2000s and first marketed in the U.S. by Birdseye , quickly became a hitting [ source : Horowitz ] . In 2007 , ConAgra come out with Healthy Choice Café Steamers , the first line of double-dyed meals that could be steam - cooked . The product uses a disposable setup called a Steam Cooker – a bowl that contains sauce , plus a steamer clam field goal with meat , vegetable and alimentary paste that draw close on top of the bowl . When you put them in the microwave oven , steamrising from the sauce falsify the detail in the basket . Then you pull them out of the oven and coalesce them all together and … voila ! Say hello to crisp veg with sauce and slit kernel [ rootage : ConAgra ] .
While micro - steamed veggie are not any healthier than vegetables microwaved the conventional fashion , they lean to look right . And if people end up eating a stack morevegetablesas a result , it ’s all just [ reservoir : Horowitz ] .
1: Gourmet and Ethnic Cuisine
By the eighties , Americans were no longer merely contented with video dinners that could be reheated and eaten quickly . Increasingly , they hankered for ready meals that in reality tasted good as well . producer react with what they called " premium frozen meals , " which were designed to pop the question more saporous fare , from brands such as Banquet Foods ' Light and Elegant , Stouffer ’s Lean Cuisine and others . Restaurantchains as various as P.F. Chang ’s and Boston Market proffer some of their entrees as flash-frozen foods . By 2009 , U.S. consumer were buying almost $ 900 million worth of such " premium " frozen repast each year , according to one mart bailiwick [ source : Marketresearch.com ] . And a third of that was for ethnic cuisines , like Thai and Indian [ origin : Marder ] .
The trend toward better - tasting , more interesting television receiver dinners encompasses more than just using different fixings . New freezing and reheat processes aim to protect the spicy and/or delicate taste perception of ethnic culinary art . Vijay Vij , a Canada - based maker of frosty Amerindic dinner party , for exemplar , recommend reheat them in a saucepan full of weewee . Another rig , Virginia - based Cuisine Solutions , market epicure stock-still foods that are created in – and mean to be reheated in – a particular temperature - controlled urine bath , a process calledsous vide . Interestingly , it take about 30 moment to heat food that way – circling back to the original cooking time of the TV dinner [ source : Ashford ] .
Lots More Information
My Church Father was a butcher and own a corner market stock , so when I was growing up , I seldom ate anything but freshly - cooked kick , chicken and Pisces that my mom made . That shaped my tastes , and I have to confess that I ’ve never really even had a desire to try a TV dinner . I adopt a mostly vegetarian dieting some age ago and still pretty much pose to it , so it ’s unconvincing that I ’ll dig into a Hungry Man dinner party anytime soon . I have started to buy them at the supermarket , though , because my meat - be intimate adolescent son enjoys them .
