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A standard TV dinner consisted of an entree, two sides and, by the 1960s, a dessert. Courtesy of the Campbell Soup Company
Maybe you loved TV dinners and recall them as a special treat served only on nights when the babysitter was on duty. Or, maybe you hated them for masquerading as real meals.
But whether you remember them fondly or if they left a bad taste in your mouth, TV dinners were part of 20th century culture in America. That is, most baby boomers likely sat at a snack table at least once to eat a meal from a foil, compartmentalized tray.
According to Smithsonian.com, "In 1953, someone at Swanson colossally miscalculated the level of the American appetite for Thanksgiving turkey, leaving the company with some 260 tons of frozen birds sitting in ten refrigerated railroad cars." It was then when Swanson salesman Gerry Thomas, "inspired by the trays of pre-prepared food served on airlines," ordered 5,000 aluminum trays, which were filled with turkey with corn-bread dressing and gravy, peas and sweet potatoes. Swanson launched the TV dinner at a price of 98 cents. In 1954, the first full year of production, Swanson sold 10 million turkey dinners.
Perhaps Thomas and Swanson were responsible for adding the words "TV dinner" to the American lexicon, but there would have been no such meals without a resident of New Jersey and his penchant for invention.
William Maxson established the W.L. Maxson Co. in 1935 while a resident of West Orange. He was personally credited with nine inventions, while his company was responsible for another 72 patents. During World War II, Maxson developed the concept of freezing cooked foods and then packaging them in reheatable containers to serve on troop transports.
After the war, these meals became available on commercial flights as "Strato-Meals," direct forerunners of the TV dinners that became a staple in supermarkets.
The name "TV Dinner" was removed from the packaging in the mid-1960s, and the Campbell Soup Co. replaced the aluminum trays of Swanson frozen TV dinners with plastic, microwave-safe trays in 1986. Today's ready-made meals of entrees, sandwiches and lunchables bear little resemblance to the divided metal trays that were enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute in 1987.
Greg Hatala may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.