More Luscious than ever!

[Unimatic1140]

Filed under the Super Forum's Cooking Supplies and Recipes lol.  One of my most favorite meals my mother would make served in a nice aluminum tray...

 

[58limited]

I miss the old aluminum tray dinners. Now everything is plastic for the microwave.

 

As I recall, Food Network has (or had) a Top 5 show. They did the top 5 from the 1950s. I was sorely disappointed that the TV Dinner did not make their list.  Instead, the Diner's Club card did. I would venture a guess that the TV Dinner had a much, much bigger cultural impact than the Diner's Club card. Redi-Whip was included in the Top 5.

 

[circlew]

I used to eat the Swanson turkey TV dinners once in a while; remember liking them OK. We didn't have these often as my mother liked to cook, and preferred freshly prepared food.

 

[yogitunes]

this is great....I remember getting those.....theres were special ones for us kids, but I can't remember the names.....

also...snak pak pudding came out too

and jiffy pop

 

[112561]

How about Libbyland Dinners?

From Libby.

http://theyalwayscomeback.blogspot.com/2008/02/libbyland-dinners.html

 

[whirlcool]

It was the Swanson Turkey dinners for us too.
And it's such a shame that Swanson isn't even in the TV dinner market anymore. Several years ago they sold the frozen food division out to Pinnacle Foods.

 

[washernoob]

On my flight to Germany 2 years ago, I had something quite similar looking! Except it was Chicken and rice. Same tray design/layout.

I have to say, for looking so cheap, it was VERY good food! +1 to Lufthansa!

 

[aldspinboy]

I can smell the gas oven heating up now lol , my mom bought those for me and my brother Swanson chicken dinners.

Robert sometimes we might have two... be carefull with the foil it is hot she would say.

Love the signature butter pad.

 

 

 

 

Darren k

 

[a440]

Fond Memories!

<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: medium;">I remember these well when my Mom did not want to deal with us.  LOL!  </span>

<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: medium;">Robert I can picture your face with excitement as a kid!  Did your mom let you preheat the oven and put them in and monitor them?  My mom would.  I think this is why I like to bake.  She would let me bake and monitor while she tended to the stove top.  My other job was cleaning up the kitchen and loading the dishwasher.  I would overhear her  telling her friends how she never has to clean her kitchen because I liked doing it so much.  Her friends would always ask how did she get me to do this.  My Mom would reply; "I don't have a clue.  He was just born that way"!  My Mom and I still laugh about this today.</span>

 

 

[mrb627]

4 compartment

The dinners I remember had the 4th dessert compartment. Usually baked apples or some sort of hot lava cake.

Malcolm

 

[toploader55]

Amazing.

I was just thinking about them yesterday.

Was this the PreCursor to Preservatives ?

But they were Damn Good especially when they had the Apple Brown Betty in the Forth Compartment.

 

[austinado16]

Like Malcom, I also remember the dessert, and you had to cut the foil top over the desert and peel just that part back, in order to get the crust on the apple pie to get crispy.

Too funny![this post was last edited: 3/27/2011-21:17]

 

[maytagbear]

When we had something like this, which was rare-

very rare, it was the red box Stouffer's dishes. Ma was an excellent cook, but sometimes after a day of teaching Home Economics/Domestic Science, enough was enough. After our housekeeper retired, we had Stouffer's more often, but no more than once a week.

I can remember a small flirtation with Swanson dinners, but just a small one.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[gansky1]

Omaha - the home of the TV dinner!

My son went to Swanson Elementary School, we go to the Swanson public library in our neighborhood and can even take you by the Swanson family's home four blocks directly west of us.  The Arkush family lived three houses down from the Swansons, they made the aluminum foil trays the TV dinners came in.  Next to them lived the family that owned the pasta company that provided the macaroni for the mac & cheese dinners and side dishes in some of the meals.

 

[washernoob]

Greg....

Does Swanson Elementary have a connection to Swanson dinners?

I have always wondered why your "location" was "home of the TV dinner!

Drive by it almost every day, and would have never guessed.

 

[nmassman44]

Greg would that be the famous Skinner pasta that was made in Omaha?

 

[austinado16]

Cool to know the home town origins of the dinners!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Libbyland Dinners

Alan, I can't decide if I remember those or not.  I seem to have some vague memories of cartoon style TV dinners in the early 70s but can't quite bring them deep out of the memory banks.  I wonder if it was those or something else?

 

[hydralique]

As With Any Fine Dinner . . .

A TV dinner requires a suitable table.

 

[appnut]

We may have had TV dinners, but it was an extreme rarity.  I do remember my mom attemtping to get us to eat the checkn & turky pot pies.  I was the one who balked at them. I just didn't like them and to this day, I don't like "pot pies" uness it's home made and I prefer the crust to be biscuits instea of pie crust.  It may have been just too "soupy" for my taste.  I remember the only other "frozen" packaged anything, that wasn't a dessert, was Stouffers Spinache Souffle.  That became quite a semi-regular around our house.  For my mom, an easy dinner, when my dad had a business dinner, it was creame of asparagus soup and grilled cheese sandwitches.  I have to admit, as I look back on it, as my mom began to slow down in her late 50s and early 60s, she'd even use one of those Sams large family dinners as something she'd serve, even company.  I nearly passed out when I saw the carton in the trash. 

 

[bugsyjones]

Swanson TV Dinners

I'm far too young to remember a foil package. I'm from the microwave generation.

However, I do enjoy all things vintage including vintage TV dinners.

I found an advert for Swanson Three Course Dinners. I framed it for the kitchen. You get Campbell's Tomato soup, beef entree, vegetable, hashbrown potatoes, and crisp dessert.

I don't know how well soup worked out, but it's interesting, none the less. I would guess that it's a later 1960's innovation.

~Tim

 

[danmantn]

The logo on the pat of butter is a nice touch in the ad.

 

[appnut]

Ken, thanks for ressurecting those.  We had a set of metal TV trays (pretty sure they came from redeemed trading stamps books).  They got used a lot more in the winter when my dad would put a fire in the fireplace, so we'd eat dinner in the den to enjoy the fireplace.  My parents gave me a nice set of wooden ones for my birthday or Christmas not too soon after I bought my current house in 1986.  they've been used some, but they're in the entry hall closet just in case.

 

[rp2813]

Nice TV trays and caddy!  I saw a single tray like that in beautiful shape with black background at a junk store recently but sadly, its legs had disappeared so I passed on it.

 

So, does everybody still refer to these as "TV" dinners, or are later generations just calling them "frozen" dinners?  I hope the term "TV Dinner" continues to be the terminology of choice for a long time to come despite the tendency to use it in a derogatory context.  After all, you're paying for the view.  The food is secondary.

 

[washernoob]

It is fun seeing these. Back when TV dinners were a treat. For me, growing up, we lived off of them!

When we were younger, we lived in a neighborhood near the projects in omaha. Our main staple food was TV dinners, kool-aid, and on that special occasion my mom made Tuna/chicken/hamburger helper.

We sometimes joke about it, but we literally did grow up on those. Glad we are past that.

We had wooden TV trays and would eat all our meals in the living room if we were good!

 

[austinado16]

Not liking pot pies? Them's fightin' words!

Pot pies were great back then. We used to have a contest to see who could flip theirs over on their plate, and remove the aluminum pan without breaking the pie. Then, if you were really good, you could even turn the pie back upright.

Those things were great!

 

[whirlcool]

Advances in TV Dinner Technology

When microwave ovens first came out these aluminum trays became a problem.
Some microwaves would tolerate them IF you put the tray back in the box after removing the aluminum foil that covered the tray before heating them. Our Litton microwave could do that. If you didn't it was spark city!

Next, the makers of TV dinners came out with these white plastic trays for their microwaved dinners that were microwave safe. But they weren't around too long before we ended up with the cardboard/plastic we have today.

And remember, "they" are warning us not to heat our food in these trays as they can off gas toxic chemicals while being heated. Always move the food to a microwavable plate before heating.

And now we have the dinners that just sit on the unrefrigerated grocery shelves that are packed in nitrogen and they are even self heating! I haven't seen one of those in awhile. Wasn't it Armour that had those? I never did trust meat products that were unrefrigerated.

 

[sudsmaster]

I remember the aluminum tray TV dinners, but we didn't have them very often. I think my Mom felt they were too expensive and she could make stuff from scratch for a lot less.

We also had the occasional chicken pot pie. I didn't mind them, and even today I like the Marie Callender version. Microwaveable, of course.

I recall the TV dinners still being packaged in aluminum trays into the 70's. Then as microwaves became more common they switched to plastic at some point.

Can't say I care much for the "dessert" brownies that come with the dinners.

I also remember when airline food was actually pretty good. That, again, was in the 60's and 70's. By the 90's it had deteriorated considerably. And now you're lucky if you get a bag of stale peanuts and half a tepid coke.

 

[DADoES]

 

I do remember LibbyLand dinners.

 

[mattl]

I remember those dinners, but I also remember the Swanson dinners that that had the desert in the middle. One was a brownie like cake, there were others, anyone remember those?

Oh, hey, just found a picture online...