from the 1960's\70's Link to new part two video: https://youtu.be/GC3IgfO2cOA "No wonder there's always a full house on Swanson Night," ads declared. Initially, the Jerpe Commission Company purchased eggs and cream from local farmers. Gotta love a TV dinner that has tater tots included. However, you enjoy them, having a frozen meal at the ready can be a lifesaver on those busy nights. Sign up for our newsletter to get daily recipes and food news in your inbox! "Don't bring any more of these out here unless you bring us a lot of beer, too," they told her. These are the 10 Best Frozen Dinners For Busy Weeknights. Flat iron square pancakes. Finally, a brand that recognized that Americans just want cheese and carbs, even if it is served with the ubiquitous buttered peas and glazed carrots. Aug 26, 2015 - In 1953 Swanson TV Dinners were born and changed family dining forever. It cost 98 cents and came in a box resembling a TV. Heartier than EasyMac, this frozen dinner pairs chicken nuggets and broccoli with Kraft's signature dish. Swanson & Company marketed a frozen meal-on-a-tray. 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. In the '70s, … Click here for all of our latest coronavirus coverage. Health-conscious consumers turned to Healthy Choice TV dinners in the 2000s, and the brand is still making a variety of steamer bowls and power bowls today. Your ultimate restaurant and supermarket survival guide is here! Most homes in the 1960s and 1970s had a set of TV trays for just such an occasion. This 7-day smoothie diet will help you shed those last few pounds. Read on for a little history and perspective on TV dinners, as well as some of our favorite mediocre meals from the '50s through the '90s. 10 Best Frozen Dinners For Busy Weeknights, Chicken and Vegetables, was marketed to women. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission to support our work. Gotta love a TV dinner that has tater tots included. Swanson - Hungry Man Salisbury Steak TV Dinner box - 1970's In the mid-70's, Swanson introduced their "Hungry-Man" concept, and from what I recall, it was pretty successful. Description: 1961 SWANSON TV DINNER vintage magazine advertisement "Trust Swanson" -- Their Swiss steak is the kind you can cut with a fork -- Size: The dimensions of the full-page advertisement are approximately 10.5 inches x 13.5 inches (26.75 cm x 34.25 cm). His final position at retirement was Director of Marketing and Sales. Sure, these are meant to be a snack. If Swanson's international cuisine was gaining traction, this was the … Yellow snack cake with cream filling. A TV dinner (also called prepackaged meal, ready-made meal, ... but the first to achieve success was Swanson. People were also very into TV dinners and frozen snacks. The 1970s and 1980s were filled with memorable but not-so-healthy foods. Carl A. Swanson(1879 – 1949) was a Swedish immigrant who worked on a farm in Blair, Nebraska, until he moved to Omaha. Still, Swanson wasn't the first company to sell a "balanced" frozen meal (featuring a protein, a starch, and a vegetable), but it was the one that spawned an industry—one that continues to this day. There, he worked in a grocery store where he came into contact with John O. Jerpe, who owned a small commission company, in which Swanson would become a partner in 1899. DiGiorno was invented in the '90s, but any millennial will remember the tagline: "It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno." 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. Perfect for sitting in front of the TV and watching a sports game, DiGiorno revolutionized the frozen pizza game. The Swedish meatballs were an especially comforting dish for millennials longing for IKEA's delicacy. Another frozen "snack" that was really a meal, Bagel Bites hit shelves in 1985. A Swanson bacteriologist named Betty Cronin was put in charge of developing the product, according to Mental Floss, and notes she had mostly "male underlings." Save money. These included German, Polynesian, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese dinners. In the mid-1970s, Swanson introduced its international-style line of TV dinners, which included options like "Mexican Style" (featuring tamales and an enchilada), "Polynesian Style" (featuring sweet and sour chicken and pork and an orange tea cake, "German-Style" (featuring spaetzle and a prune-apricot compote) and "English Style" (capitalizing on the fish & chips craze). When it became clear that 260 tons of frozen turkey would go unclaimed, lore has it that a Swanson salesman named Gerry Thomas came to the rescue. For the record, some dispute this story and say it was the Swansons themselves who came up with the concept. As a child in the 1970s, I loved Swanson's TV Dinners although we very rarely had them. But they were invented in 1983, and they're sure to bring nostalgia for people who grew up during that decade. Here's a Morton fried chicken TV dinner box. The dessert is typical the big draw on a TV dinner, but this one looks … It cost 98 cents and came in a box resembling a TV. But Twinkies aren't a balanced meal, which led to the "Morton Twinkie Supper." Swanson Mexican Style TV … Related: The 50 American Inventions That Changed the World. Hungry-Man's first celebrity spokesman was NFL player "Mean" Joe Greene. Meals included chicken and vegetables, Oriental beef, and zucchini lasagna. Swanson Polynesian Style TV dinner is a TV dinner that was part of the Swanson International Menu line. ", 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. Stouffer's has them, as do Kroger, Tyson, and a handful of others. Reflecting back, I think I liked the idea more than the taste. Discover (and save!) "We had been pitching regular supermarkets for years, but it wasn't until big chains such as Kroger started carrying frozen health foods in the late 1990s that our business really took off," Andy Berliner, who co-owns Amy's Kitchen, told CNN in 2009. Most people over a certain age have memories of eating frozen TV dinners. Herb. Cronin was eventually promoted to head of product development, but the job didn't come without its drawbacks. They weren’t from a box, and they weren’t usually frozen either. Now owned by Nestle, Lean Cuisine provided a "healthier" alternative to other TV dinners when it was introduced in the '80s. Morton Fried Chicken TV Dinner box - 1970s. Hawked in TV commercials by the likes of Mean Joe Greene, it came in versions such as fish 'n' chips, Salisbury steak, fried chicken, and turkey pot pie. If you grew up with health-conscious parents, you might have enjoyed these frozen meals while you were growing up. Today, Stouffer's family-style meals can be cooked in the oven or microwave. In the '70s, Swanson introduced this larger-portion variation on the regular TV dinner, claiming it was for those who wanted to "eat like a man" and people with a "hearty appetite." This was pretty standard fare — sliced apples, buttered peas, sweet potatoes — but also included a ham steak smothered in "raisin sauce." More than 40 years later, you can still get a microwaveable Hungry-Man dinner, albeit not without some health concerns. Microsoft may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through recommended links in this article. The first TV dinner featured turkey, corn bread dressing and gravy, buttered peas and sweet potatoes. For housewives of the day, it was the no-brainer answer to a hungry husband (and children) if she had a busy day or an evening away from home. Hey, for being frozen, it doesn't look half bad! Designed as a budget meal for a family of four, Stouffer's family-style frozen dinners appealed to dual-income families, and many other companies followed suit. Swanson didn’t add a dessert compartment to the TV dinner until 1960 (options included apple cobbler and brownies). I have some of the fondest food memories of the 1970’s. 1962 — Swanson dropped the name “TV Dinners” to enforce the idea that they could be eaten anytime of day; 1970 — Gerry Thomas retired. RELATED: Learn how to harness the power of tea to lose weight. Which is, apparently, still a thing that people willingly eat. ", Related: 100 Cheap and Easy Weeknight Dinners. Billed as "the first frozen dinners for kids," Libbyland's packaging included pop-up animal cartoon characters. As The New York Times reported in 1984, Stouffer's sales plunged after 1978. Kid Cuisine is still selling up a storm, but other brands, like Yummy Spoonfuls and Kidfresh, offer healthier kiddie choices as well. Celebrities like country singer Barbara Mandrell and actress Lynn Redgrave acted as spokespeople for the brand. 1961 Swanson Turkey TV Dinners Ad, "Trust Swanson" by, Hostess Twinkies. In 1973, TV Dinners were up-sized when the parent company of Swanson Dinners released a series of large meals known as Hungry-Man. Although Lean Cuisine cut the calories and fat from frozen meals, it wasn't until the late 1990s that the frozen dinner market made room for healthy meals—as in meals that weren't necessarily low calorie but packed a nutritional punch. Banquet's classic flavors, like the Salisbury steak, have been around for decades. Busy parents in the 1990s were urged to serve their kids these frozen dinner abominations from ConAgra that included entrees such as chicken nuggets, pizza, ravioli, corn dogs, and the like. Although these days, frozen dinners can range from a massive pizza to a ravioli with special dietary concessions, it was Swanson TV Dinners that started the hype, as a means of reducing food waste. It was essentially a TV dinner—with a Twinkie on the side. More than two decades after Jack Fisher's "man-size" frozen FrigiDinners failed to entice, Swanson came out with "Hungry-Man," the TV dinner made with a "man's" appetite in mind (in other words, a standard TV dinner, only larger). Swanson ended up selling 10,000,000 TV dinners that first year. The 5,000 dinners proved to be a way off the mark. The ads promised to "bring authentic, foreign-style right to your table … in any language, you can trust Swanson. Chicken and beef versions soon followed. Note: Cheapism does not accept or publish guest blog posts. Hunt's Snack Pack Chocolate Pudding. Swanson sold 10,000,000 of them that year. Hey, alternating between scalding-hot cheese and still-frozen meat was just part of the fun. By the time this version came out in the mid '60s, Swanson had 11 TV dinner variations on the market, including one with fried shrimp. Additionally, the frozen … The Chun King brand served up shrimp and unspecified "meat" egg rolls with a chicken chop suey and "fluffy" white rice. Cronin used her friends as taste testers and, presumably because the quality of the food was less than stellar, they started making demands. Swanson chicken pot pie. You don't even have to boil water! Totino's are still as tasty as ever, but they hold a special place in '90s kids' hearts. Let's boogie down memory lane for a look at these 1970s foods.. And for more nostalgia, don't miss these 35 Snacks From Your Childhood You Forgot You Loved. The brand launched in 1988 with a tofu pot pie, but it didn't see mainstream success until the '90s. The meal was released in the 1970s. Swanson & Sons overestimated the number of Thanksgiving turkeys the American public would consume. 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