Gregory Morrow wrote:

>from the November 10, 2004 edition -
>http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1110/p11s01-lifo.html
>
>
>At 50, TV dinner is still cookin'
>
>By Mary Dixon Lebeau | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
>
>"It began as a solution to that All-American holiday problem - what to do
>with the leftover turkey. But executives at C.A. Swanson & Sons weren't
>talking about just the remainders of the family meal. They were talking
>520,000 pounds of poultry.
>
>The Omaha, Neb., frozen food company had overestimated the demand for and
>undersold its 1953 Thanksgiving supply. Having insufficient warehouse
>facilities to store the overage, brothers Gilbert and Clark Swanson loaded
>the turkeys into 10 refrigerated railroad cars, which had to keep moving to
>stay cold.
>
>As the turkeys traveled from Nebraska to the East Coast and back again, the
>Swanson brothers handed their staff a challenge - make good of this "fowl"
>situation.
>
>Enter Gerry Thomas, a company salesman. Visiting the food kitchens of Pan
>American Airways in Pittsburgh, he caught sight of the single-compartment
>aluminum trays the cooks used to keep food hot. Thomas requested a sample,
>then spent his flight home designing a three-compartment tray that was a
>step up from the serviceman's mess kit. He decided his design might be just
>what Swanson needed to sell off that turkey.
>
>Back in Omaha, Thomas presented a turkey dinner-filled tray to the Swanson
>brothers. Then he suggested tying the dinners to the nation's latest craze,
>television. Packages were designed to resemble a TV screen, complete with
>volume control knobs - and the TV dinner was born.
>
>Swanson didn't actually invent the frozen dinner. That can be credited to
>(or blamed on) Clarence Birdseye, who in 1923 invested $7, purchased an
>electric fan, buckets of brine, and some ice, and invented a system of
>packing and flash-freezing waxed cardboard boxes of fresh foods.
>
>But it was that packaging - the compartments for individual servings - that
>put Swanson on the frozen food map.
>
>"The segmented plate was enormously powerful, and remains so," says Betty
>Fussell, food historian and author of "My Kitchen Wars."
>
>"The childlike packaging makes it appealing," she adds. "The food is
>segmented, just the way we separate food on our plates when we're children
>and don't want things mixed. It's a form of comfort to us. Everything is in
>its place."
>
>It was 50 years ago that Swanson contributed to an American food revolution
>by selling its first TV dinner - packaged in Thomas's segmented tray - for
>98 cents. It let customers feast on turkey with corn bread stuffing,
>buttered peas, and sweet potatoes - right in front of their television
>screens.
>
>The Swansons, a bit skeptical about the new-fangled idea, ordered a first
>run of only 5,000 meals. But they quickly learned that they had greatly
>underestimated the demand. In 1954, more than 25 million TV dinners were
>served in front of 33 million television sets in living rooms across
>America.
>
>It came, it thawed, it conquered. Americans loved those prepackaged turkey
>meals almost as much as they loved Lucy. As families gathered around their
>8-inch black and white Philcos to watch "You Bet Your Life" and "The Bob
>Hope Show," they ate from those familiar trays.
>
>The demand soared, and the Swansons - finally recognizing a good thing when
>they saw it - added fried chicken, Salisbury steak, and meatloaf to their TV
>dinner menu.
>
>Still, not everyone was thrilled about the new dinnertime innovation.
>Despite the popularity of the convenient meals, Swanson did receive "hate
>mail" - mostly from disgruntled husbands who were suddenly coming home to
>find precooked, reheated dinners instead of their favorite home cooking.
>
>"You can't blame the TV dinner for taking the family away from the table,"
>Ms. Fussell points out. "The TV did that. And, actually, it was another form
>of togetherness - eating tray next to tray in front of the TV."
>
>"Society had changed a lot since World War II," says Deborah Duchon, a
>nutritional anthropologist who appears on the Food Network program "Good
>Eats."
>
>"People were working and living urban lives," Ms. Duchon explains. "Cars
>made us mobile, and teenagers had their own lives. Convenience became a
>priority for us. In the '50s, society became very futuristic. We wondered
>what our lives would be like in the year 2000, and were very interested in
>technology and machinery. People embraced TV trays and TV dinners not
>because the food was good - it was awful - but because it was futuristic and
>convenient."
>
>In that way, "food was an expression of the values of society," she says.
>
>Still, futuristc and convenient weren't all Americans wanted. They didn't
>want to skip dessert for the sake of the future. In 1960, as TV viewers
>enjoyed the homegrown stories of Mayberry, Swanson sweetened their meals by
>adding desserts - and a fourth compartment - to the dinner trays.
>
>Then another idea occurred to the marketing department: If frozen
>prepackaged meatloaf was good for dinner, wouldn't it work just as well at
>lunch? In 1962 Swanson dropped the "TV Dinners" name to suggest that the
>meals were good any time of day. To reinforce this point, Swanson Breakfasts
>were introduced in 1969, and children around the country met Big Bird,
>Ernie, and the "Sesame Street" crew while eating reheated eggs that year.
>
>
>Imitators galore
>
>Just like real television programming, TV dinners had sequels and copycats.
>Many companies tuned into convenience foods.
>
>Today, 50 years after that first segmented tray appeared in the frozen food
>sections of US grocery stores, shoppers can find just about any type of
>cuisine in frozen form.
>
>There's 24-hour programming in the form of frozen food for any meal or
>occasion, from breakfast to snacks. And cooking times became faster than a
>game show lightning round, since the aluminum tray was canceled and replaced
>with plastic-crystallized polyethylene, which is ideal for the microwave.
>
>Today's highest ratings go to family-size or individual meals that offer
>large portions of meat. For the most part, dessert has disappeared (Swanson
>cut them from the lineup in 2001) in favor of diet foods, which now make up
>a third of the market.
>
>Even without the brownie, Americans keep eating frozen meals. Dollar sales
>grew an average 7.5 percent per year from 1998 to 2003, according to
>research by the Mintel International Group.
>
>
>Trays as cultural icons
>
>Although technology moved on, the original aluminum tray was not forgotten.
>In 1986, it took its place in the Smithsonian Institution, immortalized
>right next to Fonzie's jacket, the two most appropriate symbols of
>television's happy days.
>
>Hollywood followed suit in 1997 when an aluminum tray - along with
>handprints of Swanson salesman Gerry Thomas - was placed in the cement
>outside Mann's Chinese Theatre alongside the marks of Lassie, Uncle Miltie,
>and other TV legends. In 1999, Hollywood produced a commemorative sequel,
>giving the tray its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
>
>As Americans mark the 50th anniversary of the sale of the first TV dinner,
>the concept of a convenient frozen meal has become ingrained in the culture.
>For 66 percent of families, the act of eating in front of the TV screen,
>which Swanson was the first to capitalize on, has been syndicated and is
>rerun nightly."
>
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I ate one of those once! If I remember correctly, it tasted like it was
50 years old.

Bubba