In Michael Pollan's "The Cooking Animal" he says, "Cooking gave us not just the meal but also the occasion: the practice of eating together at an appointed time and place" (105). But the TV dinners made it possible for dinner to be served fast and allowed everyone to gather around the TV set to eat and watch their favorite shows, in color!.
America owes a huge thanks to the inventor of "heat and eat meals," Gerry Thomas. He is both responsible for the innovation of frozen meals and the famous Swanson brand. Although Thomas innovated/introduced the idea in 1954, Clarence Birdseye can take the credit for being the first to flash freeze foods. In 1923, Birdseye came up with a system to flash-freeze foods. Albert and Meyer, by 1949 were selling frozen meals in tinfoil trays but didn't get half of the attention Swanson would soon get. By 1954, consumers were head over heels about TV dinners.
The infamous frozen dinners by Swanson's, initially, came about due to a turkey over load. One Thanksgiving left the company with about two hundred-sixty ton of turkey that they didn't know what to do with. Thomas came up with an idea based off the recent airplane compatible compartment aluminum trays Pan American Airways used. The company decided to package the turkey along with corn bread stuffing, peas, and sweet potatoes. Swanson began getting the word out there and advertising on TV and the rest was history. During the first year alone, twenty-five million TV dinners were sold for just ninety-eight cents each. In "Heat, Tray, Love" Connie Schultz says, "Imagine my horror when one of my friends told me recently that she had no childhood memory of eating TV dinners" (114). That is how popular TV dinners became in the everyday household. .
Throughout the years the idea of TV dinners has continued to grow since the 50's. There are no longer just frozen dinners but there are frozen meals.
