It Came, It Thawed, It Conquered

   I went out for dinner three nights in a row last week.  Even for me, it was excessive.  I could make excuses about how busy we were but the truth is that eating out is too convenient.

   I certainly did not acquire the habit from my parents.  Our family “went out” for dinner after funerals and sometimes on holidays.  Fancy eating for the Carroll’s was the Wedgewood Cafeteria in Montclair, New Jersey.  It must have been fancy because the chef wore a big hat as he cut off slabs of prime rib. In reality, the Wedgewood was probably closer to a Luby’s with linen tablecloths. 

   That doesn’t mean that mom cooked every night.  My father made the pizza and late edition newspaper run on most Friday nights. The big treat for us came when mom sent one of us to the store for that 1960’s gem – Swanson’s TV Dinners.  The standard order was two turkey and two fried chicken frozen dinners although my father occasionally broke tradition with the Swiss steak dinner.

   Forty minutes later (no microwaves yet), the Carroll’s were watching family television while eating scalding hot dinners on metal TV tables.

   The history of the TV dinner can be traced back to a trainload of 270 tons of leftover turkey. Swanson and Sons had undersold their Thanksgiving orders and were left with ten refrigerated cars full of turkey. The trains literally crossed back and forth across the US to keep the refrigeration units working.

   Gerald Thomas, a Swanson executive, spotted the trays used for airline food service and created the famous three-part metal tray with frozen food in 1954.  The first TV dinners (turkey of course) sold for 98 cents.  Swanson took a risk and produced 5,000 dinners. They ended up selling 25 million in the first year thanks to the clever tie-in with the most popular appliance in America – the television. Fried chicken was added in 1955 followed by Swiss steak, Mexican themed meals, macaroni and cheese and more.  Mean Joe Greene introduced the Hungry Man Meal in 1973 and the first microwave meals appeared in 1986.

   I recently conducted a slightly scientific survey of about 60 Rotary members showed that about half never ate TV dinners as a kid.  Those that did preferred the macaroni and cheese dinner with turkey placing a close second.  Swanson’s Web site states that turkey is still the most popular meal with fried chicken in second place. 

  Three Rotary members remembered watching Bonanza over a TV dinner many times and one presumably younger member tied TV dinners to the Mork and Mindy show.

   Like many childhood memories, my enjoyment of TV dinners should remain frozen in time.  My steady diet of Banquet pot pies in college effectively killed my love for frozen foods.

   While she may be mentioned in the company history, I do believe my mother had a hand in planning the meals. I couldn’t hide the vegetables because they rested in their own neat compartment.  The desserts remained scalding for about 20 minutes so you couldn’t eat them first and everything was soaked in butter; just like mom’s pre-cholesterol cooking.  As a final salute to mom, there were no dishes. 

   Take a frozen trip down memory lane by visiting www.swansonmeals.com.

Wake Up And Smell The Onions!

   Thanksgiving is all about tradition. As a kid, my family shared Thanksgiving with the Bivianos - our close family friends – for 12 years in a row.  In that spirit, I am repeating a column that appeared in this space last year. I’ll be back next week – I promise. In the meantime have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

   If there were a playoff to determine the best holiday, I believe Thanksgiving would have won the trophy in my home. Christmas was bigger but it was different every year.  Thanksgiving, on the other hand, was as predictable as turkey and stuffing.

   The holiday began early in my house with the sound of chopping and the smell of sautéed onions and celery. Mom’s preparation for the Super Bowl of cooking had begun.  We only enjoyed the smell every other year as we celebrated “home and away” with our old neighbors; the Bivianos. The early morning aroma of pies filled the house in off years.

   The kids’ day began with watching the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. The float characters may change but the parade is almost identical to the one we know today through television.

   A tradition in the northeast has been the high school football game on Thanksgiving morning.  This marked the end of the regular football season and usually pitted the biggest rivals for what would be the year’s best attended game.  Strangely, both families attended the Nutley – Kearney (NJ) game each year even though none of us lived there.  The Biviano’s “Uncle John” coached at Nutley High School so that was reason enough to attend.  Looking back, I believe the real reason was for the dads to just get the kids out of the house for a few hours while the iron chefs prepared dinner.

   They say that smells can be a strong memory trigger. That would explain why every time I smell roasting turkey, I am transported back to the moment we returned from those cold football games. The windows would literally be steamed from the oven and the aroma that hit you when the door opened was incredible.

   The turkey waiting game would now begin. The older brothers would settle in for some football while the dads discussed various home repair projects.  I never knew a steam radiator valve could be so captivating.  Being too young to care about football, I settled on playing  house or a board game with their youngest; Eva Marie. Our own tradition though was watching Laurel and Hardy’s “The March of the Wooden Soldiers,” which aired on a local station every Thanksgiving. 

   Regardless of who hosted the event, seating everyone for dinner was always a challenge. Table leaves and mismatched chairs consumed every available space in the dining room and kids were often pushed into the kitchen when extra relatives joined us.

   The dinner came at us in waves of big and small fancy dishes that we hadn’t seen since Easter. Looking back, just keeping all of the food warm was an accomplishment in the days before microwaves.

   The turkey and trimmings were magnificent of course no matter which house we celebrated at.  Their glory was matched only by the selection of pies and baked goods that followed them.

   In a time before political correctness, the dads would retire to the living room for more football, the kids would disappear upstairs to play records and the moms would wash a mountain of dishes.

   The long day wound down as the adults drank coffee in the living room and we stayed quiet upstairs hoping the grownups would forget how late it was.  Eventually the call upstairs came and we said our goodbyes as leftovers were stacked in our arms.

   Our two families followed this script for about fifteen years until college and later marriage got in the way.  Still, there isn’t a Thanksgiving Day that I don’t think of the Bivianos and the Carrolls and those crowded dining rooms.

   By the time you read this, mom may already be basting the turkey in your house. Give her a hug, wash a few dishes and have a Happy Thanksgiving!