Dinner Time

Waxing nostalgic around here lately...

I asked my son the other day if he could guess how long he thought it took a T.V. dinner to heat up. He guessed five minutes. After I stopped laughing I informed him that the original "Swanson's T.V. Dinners" were heated in a 425 degree oven for twenty-five minutes!

"Why so long?" he asked. So I went on to explain that microwave ovens had as yet, not been invented, and that we considered a half hour (or in my house 45 minutes with 6 trays in the oven, not such a big deal when compared to cooking a roast.

As a Mom who often walks in the door at 5:00 or later most weekdays, I can put together a homemade meal in 30-40 minutes. Most days this includes cooking a protein, a vegetable (or two), and rice or potatoes for the teenagers to help "fill in the cracks" as my Mother used to say.

T.V. dinners were supposed to be a short cut for families, but in our house they served more as a novelty- a special treat for us when Dad was on the night shift at the firehouse. Each kid was able to choose a different meal; sailsbury steak, sliced turkey with gravy, or my favorite, fried chicken.

Today parents often fix one meal for the adults and another "fast meal" for the kids. How many times have we pulled out the frozen chicken nuggets to heat up with the boxed mac and cheese because Petunia doesn't like meatloaf?

T.V. dinners were meant to be eaten on "t.v. trays" in front of the family television set as they gathered to watch their favorite show together. Today, many families rarely gather at the dinner table, much less watch the same television programs in the same room together.

Trends come and go, but rarely pass without leaving some lasting mark. T.V. dinners heralded the age of fast, convenient, "space age" food. We were in a hurry to get somewhere: a little league game, dance class, tennis lessons, outer space.

The pendulum is now

slowly swinging back and all we want to do, we say, is slow down. Slow food, slow cooking, it's all the rage.

I am often feeling rushed and pressured to get a meal on the table after a long day, but I'll take that pressure if it means we come together around the dinner table, enjoy a home cooked meal and reconnect after a day scattered apart.