 During World War II Thomas was a U.S. Army intelligence officer, and was awarded the Bronze Star for his work in breaking Japanese codes. After the war he went to work as a salesman for C.A. Swanson & Sons. In 1953, the company way overbought turkey for Thanksgiving; it had half a million pounds left over. What to do? Thomas came up with the solution: package it with side dishes as frozen dinners in aluminum trays. He even came up with a name for it: "TV Dinner". ("If it were today, we'd probably call it the 'digital dinner'," he said in 1999.) It was an immediate success: in 1954 Swanson sold 10 million of the dinners -- at 98 cents each -- in part because they took "only" half an hour to heat up. The company quickly expanded the line to other meals, which Thomas tested on his own family. In the late 1960s he helped adapt the meal to a new kitchen appliance: the microwave oven, which cut prep time to about 5 minutes. Thomas died July 18 from cancer at a hospice in Arizona. He was 83.
From This is True for 17 July 2005 Suggestions for further reading:
 by Stephanie O'Dea Amazon Price: $12.97 Customer Review: this book is better than i expected and the price is great. will use it a lot  by Eric Schlosser Amazon Price: $10.19 Customer Review: I expected more information on the "current" state of food cleanliness, not a book report on the history of the food industry.  by Weight Watchers Amazon Price: $19.77 Customer Review: I am a working mom and I wanted to make sure that my family ate healthy and that I still had some down time for myself to relax after work. I got all of that in this one cookbook...the meals are fantastic and healthy and they take NO TIME at all to ...  by Arthur Agatston Amazon Price: $16.47 Customer Review: I recommend this diet book to anyone with high cholesterol or is hypoglycemic. The purpose of this book is to improve a persons' heart health by changing their blood chemistry. The second goal is weight loss, because when that occurs it's a sign that...  by Martha Stewart Living Magazine Amazon Price: $16.47 Customer Review: The food actually turns out looking like the pictures. And there aren't too many ingredients and you can check the calories, fat, and protein per serving easily in the index. My friend received the book for Christmas and was so enthusiastic I bough... Newsfeed display by CaRP |
About the HUs
About This is True
Prev: Wartime gypsy Frances Langford Next: The very healthy Richard Doll | |