What is National Tv Dinner Day?
The first Swanson TV Dinner consisted of a Thanksgiving meal of turkey, cornbread dressing, peas, and sweet potatoes. Swansons made the aluminum tray from scratch. They also divided each food item into individual compartments. The cook cooked the dinner in the oven at home. The cooking time was usually 25 minutes. Almost all frozen food trays can be cooked in the microwave or a conventional oven today.
They priced TV dinners at 98 cents when Swanson's first sold TV dinners. Production estimates reached 5,000 dinners in the first year. Swanson far exceeded that number, to their surprise. They sold more than ten million of them in the first year.
Tv dinner facts
- Swanson introduced desserts to a new four-compartment tray in 1960
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