- And a case of "who actually invented them?"
National TV dinner day just happened on September 10th but do you know the history and origin of tv dinners? Or who the two groups are that claim they invented them?
TV dinners came out as compact multi course meals that took 15 minutes to bake. They were affordable and delicious and the people wanted them.
TV dinners have be claimed to be invented by more than one person and of course you know one of the groups was Swanson. Gilbert and Clarke Swanson said that they came out with TV dinners in 1953.
But in the reality of the history and origin, the product had already been out
sine 1944 by William L. Maxson. He was a New York inventor that got the idea to package an entire frozen meal after planting too much cauliflower on his property.
He cooked, seasoned and froze his cauliflower before forgetting about it for about a year. He then pulled it out, ate it and realized his cauliflower was as good as they day he prepared it.
He came up with the idea of a good looking frozen meal that tasted great but was pretty simple, with one portion of meat and vegetables, set and separated on a round tray with a lid.
He took his invention to the Navy and the officials loved the idea of the light compact meals that cost pennies to make. Instead of canned mystery meat, compressed cereal, biscuits and cigarettes, they were getting food that looked, smelled and tasted surprisingly delicious
In the history and origin, it was just before WWII, when the meals came out with a main course like steak, meatloaf, beef stew, corned beef ham steak or breaded veal cutlets with two separate servings of vegetables or veggies and hot bread.
They were called Maxson sky plates after the inventor and were heated on the Maxson Whirlwind Oven, a convection oven at the time. It warmed six plates at a time, and he then developed one that could heat 120 at a time. 
Maxson agreed to a deal with Pan American airways to serve the military meal to domestic passengers and civilians. And it was only a matter of time before the public wanted the sky plates to eat at home
As of September 1946, a year after WWII, the plate was rebranded as the Stratomeal, “knocking your tastebuds into the stratosphere.” Stratomeals were marketed as a full meal you could pop in the oven with no prep or clean up and to clean it up, you just throw it away.
Soon other small frozen food companies tried making their own versions of the frozen meals but as of 1952, Maxson was the only one with a frozen meal on the store shelves for about seven years.
Frozen dinners weren’t seeing a decrease in sales, but no growth either. On September 10th 1953, Swanson, a popular and trusted brand at the time launched their own frozen dinners.
The dinners came with turkey slices, cornbread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes. But it seems that the history and origin story about “Swanson’s invention.”
The Swanson Company claims they developed the idea for a prepacked frozen meal after having 520,000 additional pounds of turkey that didn’t sell the year before. Allegedly, all of this meat was loaded to frozen train cars to buy time while Swanson was trying to figure out how to save it all.
Gilbert and Clarke Thompson of Swanson were said to have invented the meal but also, best salesmen, Gerry Thomas, also of Swanson, was also said to have invented them.
Thompson says he got the idea on a business trip flight and there was a hot meal on a transactional tray. So if we circle back, he was on a Pan American flight when he was served the Maxson meal which was already available for 7 years.
Thompson came back and pitched the idea “he invented” and all the turkey was used to assemble premade turkey dunners in an aluminum tray for Swanson.
Do you want to hear more about the history and origin of tv dinners? Let me know in the comments!