You know what I miss? TV dinners. Waaaaaaaaaaay (One...two...seven...eleven..yeah that's enough a's) back when I wuz a youngin' there were these premade meals you could get and they came in a METAL tray. You know how now you buy a meal to heat up an it's just in one shallow tray? Well these "TV dinners" had 3 to 5 little sections for your meal. Say you got a meatloaf one. There was a place for your meatloaf, a place for mashed potatoes and gravy, a place for green beans and a couple other things. It was kinda cool and I'm sure all those anal-retentive people who's food can't touch, loved 'em.
Now, to cook/heat them up you had to use that thing in your kitchen that the stove sits on top of (Psst...the stove is that thing you may have seen people boil water on when they want to make Mac n' Cheese/Kraft dinner the old fashioned NON-Easy Mac way). Well, that thing the stove is on is called an Oven. NO, it's not a Macro-wave Oven. That's a common mistake though, since we're all used to the Microwave Oven. No, it's JUST an oven. You heated this Oven....what? Yeah, you had to wait for it to heat up. Yeah, I know, just listen will you? After it heated up to the right temperature you put your metal tray/dinner thing in and then you went off and did something else for like half an hour. Truthfully, I don't remember how long it took, but it took a long time in comparison to the stuff we have now. It was way longer than 5mins, I know that. Aaaaanyway....
What's that? Yes, you could, and still can for all I know, put metal things in this Oven. NO, it doesn't harm it at all. No, sparks or anything.
OH! I almost forgot!
Sometimes, and I know this'll sound crazy, but it's true, sometimes you had to open the Oven up and actually TURN your tray thing by hand. I KNOW! You opened the Oven up and it felt like you were leaning your head over Las Vegas. You had to use those Potholder things (Have you ever really held a pot with them?), and you kind pushed it around a bit to turn it cuz you wanted to shut the door in a hurry. Luckily, you just had to turn it once, not stand there constantly turning it and turning it like our micro's do for us.
OK, so, after the hour or whatever was up, your food was ready and I gotta tell you it was WAY better tasting than the stuff we have now. Sure, it took a lot of time, bu tif you bought the chicken meal, it was get this, actually CRISPY. NO, really, I'm serious! It was. One of these meals had a peachy, berry, apple-ish cobler thgn and when you took it out of the oven and pulled back the foil....did I mention it had foil over it instead of plastic? What? Cuz plastic would melt you doofus and get all i your food making it taste, well, pretty much like our food all tastes now.
Where was I? Ah yes, the cobbler stuff. It was all bubbly and gooey and yummy. They had another of these "TV dinners" that had a little chocolate cake with it and when it was done baking, it was REAL CAKE!!! No foolin!
Well, nowadays, when I pull my plastic trayed mystery meat and sumthin or t'other out of the microwave and marvel at it's grayish or slightly crunchified shrunkeness I long for the days of metal trayed "TV dinners" that existed back when we were only kinda lazy instead of completely fuckin'. Don't get me wrong, I can cook. I know how to use a cookbook. I've made stuff from scratch. I just liked the in-between of the TV dinner, and I certainly liked how the metal tray helped to cook things correctly and evenly with a little help in the turning department.
That's it for today's "Damn, I'm old" rant. Next time I'll ramble on and on about how you used to be able to buy 4 comic books for a dollar or how pop in glass bottles tasted better....and I don't mean those tiny ones they have now that cost you 3 times as much as the bigger plastic bottles, I mean the TALL ones that you could use for home defense or t-ball.
Sigh.....the good ol' days.
P.S. The song has absolutely nothing to do with this post. I just had it stuck in my head this morning.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
It was like real food, but faster...but not as fast as now and real-er than now.
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3 comments:
I used to miss those foil tray meals, until the first time I had authentic enchiladas, which come from a road-side stand in a foil tray with a cardboard lid, overflowing with cheese and red sauce.
Incidentally, today at noon HBO is running a dicumentary called White Light/Black Rain, about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not everyone has forgotten.
So much to comment on!
I vividly remember the metal trays myself -- we only had those meals when my folks were out of the house and my sisters were babysitting. One word (two?) Salisbury Steak.
Yes, the perfect companion to pre-cable Clash of the Titans.
As for 4 comics for a dollar? Man, and those were the expensive days! How the hell do kids by comics now? Is it only old guys investing in back-issues of the Avengers? Seriously, I can't understand how they cost so much now! I hope my kids have as much fun reading the comic books as I did, but I'm sure as hell not going to give them $20/ month to collect their favorites!
nice digs. I am young enough to remember the yummy bubbling goodness of cherry cobbler in the tin tray with crispy chicken next door. I miss that too.
You know what else is great from our youth and you can still get? Jiffy Pop popcorn. Shake it up on the burner of the big box called stove, and the foil expands into a big poof of popcorn yumminess. I think I will go buy some.
Oh, my brother-in-law happens to own a comic store... I can still buy Archie comics four for a dollar! I always read Archie, Casper, Richie Rich and Li'l Dotta (?) am I getting her name right? Chubby little girl with black hair and a polka dot dress? Before you think I am too much of a chick, I read Spiderman and Superman comics too. When I go to my BIL's store I always plop down $20 on nostalgia.
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