but i bet you DIDN'T know that gerry thomas also died today. who is he exactly? only the inventor of the tv dinner. he called it that since television was really picking up steam at the time, and this combination of food + new technology wowed everyone, pushing sales through the roof. ten million tv dinners sold the first year. the idea came from a tray model airlines were using for food. thomas saw and thought to himself. a tray? with separate compartments for different foods? BRING ON THE INNOVATION!
and so he did. half a century later.... well. of course, in today's health-obsessed society we have all come to hate thomas' original creation. i mean, eating dinner in front of the tv is now considered lammo - it's all part of the lifestyle stereotype of a busy family who doesn't spend enough quality time together and who eat unhealthy preserverative-laid trash.
but imagine what the tv dinner must've been like back in the fifties. for the first time ever, you had the control to just sit back and relax in front of the tube. the meal right in front of you. a dish that took only 25 minutes to cook (at 425 degrees). plus it only cost one dollar! since the tv would've been a new invention and what not, it must've been a great way to integrate two fabulous activities: eating a well-earned dinner and using this new fangled gizmo they call the television.
thoms helped changed an activity almost everybody practises every day: dinner. perhaps the longterm results of his invention were not for the best, but it did help relax a routine that was up until then quite strictly laid out. i mean just look at how anal cookbooks were in the fifties. dinner was serious business. you did not fuck with teh dinner. but gerry's invention took people outside of that boxed mentality. all of a sudden dinner could be casual. relaxed. you didn't need to talk. you could take it outside of its designated room. you could do things at the same time. and with tv being a new invention at all, people were naturally inclined to watch it allllll the time. now that it's all crap, we want to turn it off. back then? not so much. things were exciting.
gerry thomas will be missed, but we will never forget the convenience he brought to millions of homes. i suggest you eat a tv dinner and watch some old star trek in remembrance or something, but i won't hold it against you if you don't. i mean fuck man, the shit they sell now is so suspicious it deserves tinfoil. but as we get more and more obsessed with healthy food, i'm sure someone will come up with a healthy fresh version of the tv dinner. something pret inspired? maybe it will be you? well i promise i'll write about you in my blog if you do. and if you die, definitely..... heh. (maybe this is why i need to switch into chef school. )
