Can you still buy TV dinners? :
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L et’s face it: TV dinners don’t exactly conjure up the image of a healthy meal. For decades, the sectionalized paper trays of processed meat, frozen veggies (both likely covered in a thick, mystery sauce) and, if you’re lucky, a bite-sized brownie went largely unchanged.
Speaking of Kid Cuisine, ’90s kids will be happy to know that Kid Cuisine frozen dinners are still available today. But you won’t find the fish sticks option in stores anymore. This was one of the earliest Swanson TV dinner offerings back in the day.
Most people over a certain age have memories of eating frozen TV dinners. For some, it’s laughing at Lucy and Ricky while chewing on a hunk of gravy-slathered turkey.
An ad for the products showed a sharply dressed housewife looking at her watch and declaring, “I’m late, but dinner won’t be.” In the early 1960s, Swanson introduced a new TV dinner that came with three pieces of fried chicken, potatoes whipped with milk and butter, and “tender” mixed vegetables.
What was the impact of TV dinners on women?
The Feminist Connection. TV dinners no doubt gave women more time to do things other than slaving over a hot oven, and are often listed as a possible factor in the rise of feminism. While that’s debatable, the invention did, interestingly, launch one woman’s career.
Swanson International Dinners. Apparently attempting to think outside the tray, Swanson got a bit more creative around 1967 with TV dinners that seemed quite loosely inspired by the culinary traditions of other cultures. These included German, Polynesian, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese dinners.
The meal included the usuals — buttered peas and whipped potatoes — but also a “frosty fruit salad” with bite-sized marshmallows that could be removed to thaw before putting the tray into the oven.
In the early 1960s, Swanson introduced a new TV dinner that came with three pieces of fried chicken, potatoes whipped with milk and butter, and “tender” mixed vegetables. Later in the decade, Swanson would introduce the “exclusive home style touch” of an apple and peach slices dessert to this same meal. “No wonder there’s always a full house on Swanson Night,” ads declared.
A 1978 ad for the Stouffer’s line of TV dinners read: “Today your husband left on a business trip. You’ve finally got a chance to start reading that new novel. And somehow, tonight, you don’t feel like eating those leftovers. It’s a good day for Stouffer’s.” Quite a construct for a frozen meal borne of mediocrity, and maybe too much. As The New York Times reported in 1984, Stouffer’s sales plunged after 1978.
In 1981 , Stouffer’s launched a comeback by introducing this low-cal version of the TV dinner, promoting the dubious claim that “never before have so few calories tasted so good.” Dubiousness aside, Lean Cuisines were huge at the time, largely due to the marketing tactic promising that those — mostly women — who ate them were, “On Your Way to Being Lean.” Meals included chicken and vegetables, Oriental beef, and zucchini lasagna. Celebrities like country singer Barbara Mandrell and actress Lynn Redgrave acted as spokespeople for the brand.
Today, more than 65 years after the invention of the TV dinner, they’re still a thing, although few people call them that anymore. You can still find Lean Cuisines and Hungry-Man products in grocery store frozen aisles, and Trader Joe’s is doing its best to make them actually palatable.
Can you still buy TV dinners?
Today, more than 65 years after the invention of the TV dinner, they’re still a thing, although few people call them that anymore. You can still find Lean Cuisines and Hungry-Man products in grocery store frozen aisles, and Trader Joe’s is doing its best to make them actually palatable.
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.
PARSIPPANY, N.J. — Perhaps no one is more surprised by the success of Hungry-Man frozen dinners than the brand’s manufacturer, Parsippany-based Pinnacle Foods Group.
Speaking of Kid Cuisine, ’90s kids will be happy to know that Kid Cuisine frozen dinners are still available today. But you won’t find the fish sticks option in stores anymore.
Their Hungry Man dinners lead the list in obliterating recommended daily intakes of sodium, and with boxes bragging about “One Pound of Food,” aren’t doing you any favors in the calorie and fat areas, either. Not only are such dinners bad for our health, they’re bad for the frozen food industry.
According to the most widely accepted account, a Swanson salesman named Gerry Thomas conceived the company’s frozen dinners in late 1953 when he saw that the company had 260 tons of frozen turkey left over after Thanksgiving, sitting in ten refrigerated railroad cars.
They called the product the Television Dinner.” The TV Dinners originally sold for 89 cents and included turkey, gravy, corn bread dressing, whipped sweet potatoes and peas.
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