TV dinner (also called packaged food , ready made food , ready meal , frozen dinner , frozen food and microwave meals ) are pre-packed frozen or cold foods that are usually served as individual portions. This requires very little preparation and contains all the ingredients for one serving of food.
Dinner on TV in the United States usually consists of cuts of meat, usually beef or chicken; vegetables, such as peas, carrots, corn, or potatoes; and sometimes desserts, like a brownie or apple cobbler. The main course can also be a common paste or fish type, such as the Atlantic cod. Rice is a common by-product. In Europe, items such as Indian or Chinese food are common.
The term TV dinner is a generic trademark originally used for packaging food brands developed in 1953 by C.A. Swanson & amp; Children (full name is Frozen TV Brand Dinner ). The original TV show came with an aluminum tray and heated in an oven. In the United States the term is synonymous with any packaged dinner purchased frozen in the supermarket and heated at home.
Most frozen food trays are now made of microwave, usually plastic.
Video TV dinner
Histori
Some small companies have imagined the previous frozen dinner (see Invention section below), but the first to achieve success is Swanson. The first Swanson TV brand dinner show was produced in the United States and consisted of turkey, corn bread, frozen peas and sweet potatoes packed in a tray like those used at the time for airline food services. Each item is placed in its own compartment. Trays prove useful: all dinners can be removed from outside packaging as a unit; a tin tray with aluminum foil cover can be heated directly in the oven without additional food; and people can eat food directly from the same tray. This product is cooked for 25 minutes at 425 Â ° F (218 Â ° C) and fits well on the TV tray table. The original TV Dinner sells for 98 cents, and has an estimated production of 5,000 dinners for the first year.
The name "TV dinner" was created by Gerry Thomas, the inventor. At the time of its introduction, television is a status symbol and a thriving medium. Thomas thought the name "Dinner TV" sounded like a product made for comfort, and the Swanson executive agreed.
Much has changed since the first TV Dinners was marketed. For example, a variety of main dishes - such as fried chicken, spaghetti, Salisbury steak, and Mexican combinations - have been introduced. Competitors like Banquet and Morton began offering a frozen dinner packed at a lower price than Swanson. Other changes include:
- 1960 - Swanson adds desserts (like apple bakers and brownies) to the new four-compartment tray.
- 1964 - The Night Hawk name comes from the Night Hawk steak house operating in Austin, Texas from 1939 to 1994. The original "Visitors" are open all night to serve people late at night. The restaurant produced the first frozen "Night Eats" dinner in the United States in 1964.
- 1969 - First TV breakfast marketed (pancakes and sausage are favorites). Great Starts Breakfast and breakfast sandwiches (like eggs and Canadian bacon) followed later.
- 1973 - Swanson's first "Hungry-Man" dinner is marketed; this contains a larger portion of regular dinner. American football player "means" Joe Greene is a spokesman for "Hungry-Man".
- 1986 - The first safe oven oven tray is marketed.
A modern frozen dinner tends to come in a safe microwave container. The product line also tends to offer a larger variety of dinner types. This dinner, also known as microwave food, can be purchased at most supermarkets. They are kept frozen. To prepare it, the plastic cover is removed or discarded, and the food is heated in a microwave oven for several minutes. They are comfortable because they basically do not require preparatory time other than heating, although some frozen dinners may require a preparer to briefly make intermediate steps (such as stirring mashed potatoes in the middle of the heating cycle) to ensure adequate heating and uniform consistency of component items.
In the United Kingdom, the first frozen food prepared was widely available in the late 1970s. Since then their popularity has continued to increase with the increasing ownership of home refrigerators and microwave ovens. Demographic trends like smaller household growth have also affected these sales and other types of comfort foods. In 2003, Britain spent 5 million pounds per day on ready-to-eat food, and was Europe's largest consumer.
Ready-to-eat fast food, which is just cooled and takes less time to reheat, is also popular and sold by most supermarkets. Cold prepared foods are intended for reheating and immediate consumption. Although most can be frozen by consumers after purchase, they can be heated from frozen or may need to be thawed completely before being reheated.
Many varieties of frozen and cold prepared foods are now generally available in the UK, including "gourmet" recipes, organic and vegetarian dishes, traditional English and foreign dishes, and smaller children's meals.
Maps TV dinner
Discovery
The identity of the inventor of Dinner TV has been disputed. In one account, first published in 1996, Swanson executive retired, Gerry Thomas, said that he understood the idea after the company found himself with a large surplus of frozen turkey due to a bad Thanksgiving sale. The Thomas version of the event has been challenged by the Los Angeles Times, a member of the Swanson family and former Swanson employee. They praised Swanson's brother with the discovery.
The Swanson concept is not original. In 1944, William L. Maxson's frozen dinner was served on an airplane. Other packaged foods are also marketed before the Swanson Dinner Events. In 1948, frozen fruits and vegetables were combined with what was then called 'dinner plates' with main dishes, potatoes, and vegetables. In 1952, the first frozen dinner on aluminum trays was ready to be introduced by Quaker States Foods under the One-Eye Eskimo label. Quaker States Foods joins other companies including Frigi-Dinner, which offers food like boiled beef with corn and peas, veal curry with peas and potatoes, and chicken chow mein with egg rolls and fried rice. Swanson, a major producer of canned and frozen poultry fins in Omaha, Nebraska, is able to promote widespread sales and frozen dinner adaptations using nationally recognized brand names with a vast national marketing campaign dubbed "Smash Operation" and the name of smart advertising "TV Dinner , "which takes advantage of public excitement around new devices.
Manufacturing
The TV dinner production process is highly automated and undergoes three major steps. These steps are food preparation, tray loading, and freezing. During the preparation of food, vegetables and fruits are usually placed on a belt that can be moved and washed, then placed into a container for steaming or boiling for 1-3 minutes. This process is called blanching, and is used as a method to destroy enzymes in foods that can cause chemical changes that negatively affect the taste and color of whole fruits and vegetables. For meat, before being cooked, they are cut in fat and cut to the right size. Fish are usually cleaned and cut into fillets, and poultry is usually washed and dressed. The meat is then flavored, placed on a tray, and cooked in the oven for a predetermined amount of time. After all the food is ready to be packed, it's sent to the charging line. Food is placed in its compartment as the tray passes under many filling machines; to ensure that every dinner package gets the same amount of food, the charging device is strictly regulated.
The food undergoes a cryogenic freezing process with liquid nitrogen. Once the food is placed on the conveyor belt, it is sprayed with liquid nitrogen that boils when in contact with frozen food. Frozen fresh food method is used to maintain the natural quality of food. When food cools through cryogenic freezing, tiny ice crystals form throughout foods that, in theory, can sustain food indefinitely if stored safely. Cryogenic freezing is widely used because it is a method for rapid freezing, hardly requiring dehydration, excluding oxygen thereby reducing oxidative decay, and causing less damage to individual freezing. Due to the fact that the cost of cryogenic freezing operations is high, it is typically used for high-value food products such as TV dinners, a $ 4.5 billion annual industry that continues to grow with the constant introduction of new technologies.
After this, dinner is covered with aluminum foil or paper, and the product is packed tightly with a partial vacuum made to ensure no evaporation takes place that can cause food to dry out. Then a packed dinner is placed in a refrigerated storage facility, transported by refrigerated truck, and stored in the store refrigerator. The TV dinners prepared with these steps - frozen and packaged properly - can remain in near perfect condition for long periods, provided they are stored at -18 ° C during shipping and storage.
Health issues
The clotting process tends to decrease the taste of food and food thus much processed with extra salt and fat to compensate. In addition, stabilizing the product for the long term usually means that the company will use partially hydrogenated vegetable oil for some items (usually desserts). The partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are high in trans fats and are shown to have adverse health effects on cardiovascular health. Dinner is almost always less nutritious than fresh food and is formulated to remain edible after long storage, so it often requires preservatives like butylated hydroxytoluene. Nevertheless, some variability between brands.
In recent years there has been a boost by a number of independent producers and retailers to make foods that are low in salt and fat and free from artificial additives. In the UK, most UK supermarkets also produce their own "healthy eating" brands. Almost all cold or frozen prepared foods sold in the UK are now clearly labeled with the recommended salt, sugar and fat content and daily intake. Concerns about government obesity and publicity initiatives such as those conducted by the National Food Standards Agency and the National Health Service have encouraged producers to reduce salt and fat levels, but oddly not industrial carbohydrates, in ready-to-eat foods.
Recently, a frozen dinner has been made that is designed to be used with a steamer, allowing quick cooking of raw basic ingredients (usually fish and vegetables) immediately before consumption.
See also
- Banquet Food
- The Freezer
- Swanson
References
External links
- Frozen, cold and ready-to-use food industry - business information on the British Library website
- Healthy Frozen Dinner - AskMen reviews about options in the United States
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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