WEBVTT - Selects: The Stories Behind A Few Food Fads 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.320 Hello everybody. It's Josh and for this week's select, I 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:07.720 chose are surprisingly Interesting. June two thousand seventeen episode on 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.200 food fads. This episode has everything you're looking for in 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:16.680 a food fads episode, TV Dinners, Oprah, and Thrills, Chills, spills. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.720 It's an odd good episode, so I hope you enjoy it. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.920 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:37.640 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:43.000 with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Roland and Frank 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.919 the Chair. Oh Frank, it's been there the whole time. 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.519 You just keep quiet mostly mostly. Yeah. I don't have 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.839 my hat on today though, so I know what gives 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.280 I don't know. You know, I'm growing the hair out, 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.640 so I thought i'd just let it flow. I noticed 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:02.320 it looks good. Why are you growing it out? I 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.880 don't know. It just sort of started happening. Then I 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.839 was like, my brother's got good hair, is longer. Yeah, 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.760 I'm always trying to be more like him. Plus I 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.440 can't have a butt cut with short hair. Yeah. Plus 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.280 I mean I've had the same short, spiky hair for 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.840 like fifteen years. Time to mix it up. I know, man, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:23.720 when I started growing mine out, I was like, what 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.360 am I doing? What's with this cube ball crap? I'm 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.040 so tired of all this. Let me just see what 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.160 it looks like, you know, with a what's that quarterback's name? 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:40.360 Joe with Eisman? No Joe no? Uh, Terry Bradshaw, No, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:46.200 you know the one, Randall Cunningham. No, Tom Brady, tom Brady. 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.400 Despite your harassment, I still figured it out. What about 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.520 Tom Brady? He want his hair? I have his hair, buddy. 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.800 I don't know about that. I do me and Tom Brady? Now, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.960 uh chuh? Yes. Did you grow up on TV dinners 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:09.040 at all? Really? No? My mom is wasn't is a 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.360 great cook, so she wouldn't have that. I see, I see, Wow, 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.680 well I did. I grew up on TV dinners and 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:21.600 usually when a TV dinner appeared. Seriously, you did miss out. 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.280 They were pretty amazing when you're like six seven years old. 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.640 I've had them when you were six or seven. No, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.520 I had them like in college. Okay, so so okay, 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.280 So you understand the magic of a TV dinner, right? Sure? Alright, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.640 imagine that as like a six year old. I'm sure 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.840 it was magical. All of your foods and like a 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.320 different little compartment. Nie just staring at you, waiting, like 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.600 just just wait, just wait, buddy. Um, when you're six, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:50.880 it's just even better. And when I was six, if 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:52.560 I would get a TV dinner, it meant that my 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.240 parents were like going to do something right. They were 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.640 going to play bridge or something like that. So it 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.760 was like a special night and like I probably exactly right. 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.400 I'd probably get to stay up late, or there'd be 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.120 some babysitter or whatever. Um, it was always just kind 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.480 of a special thing when TV dinners made an appearance. 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.640 My parents never did anything together. They never like, they 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.800 never played cards or no. Man, I rarely had babysitters. 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.239 I rarely. I don't remember having babysitters. There was always 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.520 one of them there. Yeah, maybe they didn't trust you, 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:35.080 that they didn't like each other. They may have really 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.720 enjoyed key parties well plus yeah you never know, Um 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.520 I had I have a sister that's six years older though, 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.960 so ter Yeah, but they still didn't do a lot 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:49.560 I can remember. I can literally just think of a 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.560 few times they like went to an olibaan Newton John 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:56.320 concert once. Uh. They've got a pretty good track record 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.880 so far, and my mom wentnt saw Elvis but not 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:03.080 with my dad. Wow. Uh on that last tour or 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.320 two man, the uh I think they call that the 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:14.840 jumpsuit Integrity Tour. They hold on, let me catch my breath. Yeah, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:19.240 they didn't put an undignified ending, Yeah they didn't. They 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.040 didn't do much stuff together, so I didn't get a 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.640 lot of TV dinners. I didn't get a lot of Hey, 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.760 there's just throw it in and warm it up. My 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:29.240 mom was kind of yeah, always cooking for us. Yeah, yeah, no, 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.320 my mom cooked a lot too. But now that I'm 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.240 older and looked back, I'm like us pretty convenient meal. 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.719 Like you know, she was an e R nurse for 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.640 pete sake, a weird hours and stuff. Um, but she 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.600 was a great mom. She raised me very well, as 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:49.000 everybody knows. It's a well known fact. So with TV 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.159 Dinners in particular, though, I have a certain amount of 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:55.360 nostalgia for him, But apparently like America as a whole 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.159 has a bit of nostalgia for TV dinners. There's a 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.279 TV dinner the Smithsonian, for Pete's sake, and that's like 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:08.480 America's greatest repository of nostalgia for sure, you know. Yeah, 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:10.560 so I think we should take people on a delightful 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.080 tour of the history of this wonder of TV dinners. 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.880 Yeah you sound like you're I'm not so sure. No, no, no, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:20.520 I am sure. I was just joking around. Was trying 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.799 to set it up as some you know, magical experience 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.440 that everyone's about to have. But I feel like that's 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:31.520 ingrained in it. So as the story goes, Uh, Swanson 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.479 ce A Swanson and Sons was and is a leader 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.920 in the frozen food industry. And um, whether or not 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.280 this is legend, who knows, but it's a great story. 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:48.920 Was that uh one Thanksgiving they had too much turkey 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.640 on their hands Post Thanksgiving to the tune of something 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.039 like two fifty tons of turkey that they didn't sell 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.400 they overestimate, which is so sad, you know, yeah for 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.400 those nothing. Uh yeah, like we so wanted to give 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.520 our life as a meal right now, we're just on 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.760 a train. Well, yeah, that's what they did. So the 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.160 story goes, they had about they loaded it, they couldn't 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.839 store it. They didn't none of room and no freezer 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.680 room to store all this turkey, So they put it 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:24.880 on a frozen train or a refrigerated train car as 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.000 a polar express, it's called in the industry. And the 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.280 trick to this thing is is in order for that 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.000 train to stay refrigerated, it's gotta keep moving. And so 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.560 they basically we're just running this turkey all over the 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.680 country to keep it frozen and cold. Right, It's like 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.160 that one movie UM set in the future with Tilda Switten, 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.880 where like the train never stops, societies on the train. Yeah, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.400 that's like that, but with frozen turkeys. That's a good movie. 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.599 So it's like that cross between that and Speed. Yes, 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.160 Like so if the train ever stops, it's in a 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.160 lose refrigeration, the losers refrigeration, the turkeys all go bad. 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.239 So there's this remember that Simpsons which one when Homer 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.720 is trying to describe or think of the name of 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.880 the movie Speed. He's like, it's about a about a bus. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.200 If it's speed goes down and it can't speed up. 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.320 And he says it like that many times, and he goes, 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.080 I think it's called the bus that wouldn't slow down 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.960 or that couldn't slow down. Yeah, I remember that very 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:31.080 funny line. Um, but this is real life. Chuck, this 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.960 wasn't a cartoon or a joke. Half a million pounds 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.800 of turkey on a train and if it's topped it 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:45.040 would spoil Simpsons. No, the idea that this actually happened, 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.360 it's so insane to me. So apparently the Swanson brothers 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:54.200 Clark and um, what was the other brothers, Gilbert Gilbert. 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.280 I wanted to say Clark and Gable, but Clark and 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.120 Gilbert Swanson said, all right, employ ease, we need you 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.640 to put your heads together and come up with an idea. 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.040 So they had again this is the legend, they had 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:11.560 an employee contest where um, whoever could come up with 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.080 what to do with all this turkey, I guess would 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.680 just be the employee of the month or something like that. Um. 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.040 And all the while this contest is going on in 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.880 the Swanson company, there's a train out there in the 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:29.000 United States of America just circling endlessly because it can't 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.280 stop or else the turkeys will go bad until this 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.240 Winton wins. Yeah. Yeah. So there was a salesman named 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.880 Jerry Thomas g E r R Y, not like our 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:46.959 own j E R I right, which no one ever gets. Right. Um, 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.160 this is the party, I will get He traveled from 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:55.559 Nebraska to Pittsburgh to where Pan American Airways had their 0:08:55.640 --> 0:09:01.120 kitchens because they were testing uh single compartment uh foil 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.680 tray meals that they would serve to people. And I 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.360 guess he couldn't envision what that might look like unless 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.920 he went there in person, right and steal one. Well yeah, 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.160 so yeah, it was a single compartment right. So basically 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.960 it was just a tray that you put a bunch 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.800 of food on. There were like different compartments in the tray, 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:23.360 and he's like, I gotta get my hands on one 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.160 of these, right, this is innovation. Yeah. I don't understand 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.320 that either, which is why his story smells a little 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.600 fishy to me. Um. But this, this guy, Jerry Thomas, 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:38.920 is the He's he's known as the inventor basically of 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.560 the TV dinner. Right. So he comes back to the 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.480 Swanson brothers and says, I got it. I've I've driven 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:49.880 from Pittsburgh back home, h to wherever the Swanson company 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:54.199 is located. Where am I? He famously said, Um, And 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:59.840 he said, and I've added two more compartments into this trace, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:05.320 the three compartment trade. And I drew two lines I 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.600 know what to do with the turkey. Now we're gonna 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.880 basically sell it as a frozen Thanksgiving dinner. And they 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.920 said your employee of the month, Jerry. Yeah. They say, look, 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.679 you got your your potatoes and gravy here, you got 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:18.960 your peas here, you got your turkey here. None of 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:23.160 it touches each other. I'm a genius. I'm Jerry Thomas. 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:30.359 So this coalesce with the another UH craze, which was television, 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.560 and in nineteen fifty three there were thirty three million 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:39.319 households with televisions, and um, it was really I mean, 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.520 there have been other people that had been doing this before. 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:47.280 Quaker State Foods UH in ninety nine had something in 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.800 the supermarket of frozen meal called under Geez, I know, 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.719 the most the most one, I don't want to say 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.680 the most one of the most offensive brand names ever. Yeah, 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.360 the one eyed Eskimo label. That's that's terrible. So they 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.160 were selling those in supermarkets. And then in previous to that, 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:11.120 even UH the Strato plates from Maxim were being served 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.560 on airplanes, but not as a retail food. So it 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.800 had been done before. So the creation of the TV dinner, well, wait, 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.600 don't don't don't leave out Jack Fisher. Who Jack Fisher? 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.600 Oh right, what was that one called frigid dinners? Yes, 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.360 but they're the most depressing meal ever because they were 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.280 served in bars. Yeah, they're serving in a bar, so 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.840 you didn't have to leave to go home to eat dinner. 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.360 You could just stay and keep drinking. Oh man, there 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.559 were some bars in l A in Los Felis when 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:43.760 I lived there that around two am, the Tomali guy 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.960 would come around, So okay, that's different. Oh dude, it 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.400 was the best. I mean, they were legit handmade to 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:53.079 Molly's and at one was the perfect time to be 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.760 dropping into the drawing room, you know. Oh anyway, the 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.320 creation of the TV dinner was not so much that 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:02.840 it was a brand new thing, but it was. It 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:08.040 was a marketing success story because the TV they thought, 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.480 if we can build a sing around the television, then 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.839 we've got something on our hands. Right. That was the 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.520 key the TV making it a TV dinner, right, because 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.720 all of a sudden it was like, hey, everybody loves TV. 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.560 Plus this is something I didn't realize. It added a 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:28.160 certain amount of like cashe to the TV dinner because 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:30.880 if you had a TV dinner. It meant that you 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.480 had a TV. And if you had a TV, you 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.320 were probably upper middle class at the time, right, So 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.600 the idea of having a TV or a dinner to 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.920 go with your TV really appealed to two Americans. And 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:49.800 even to this day it was such a great marketing coup. 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.600 I guess that um people still call these, and like 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.199 almost any frozen entree or frozen meal, a TV dinner. 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:02.000 Even though it was two when Swanson stopped calling their 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.400 products that they still made the products, they just stopped 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.400 calling them TV dinners. Every everybody else kept calling them 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.440 TV dinner. Yeah, you were eating these in the eighties, 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.840 like twenty years after they that brand went away, still 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:16.360 calling TV dinners and eating them on TV trays. This 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.839 is another thing you possed out on Chuck, did you have? 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:21.839 So that was the whole The whole point of the 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:26.440 TV tray was it was a foldable individual table that 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.760 you would open up in front of yourself and eat 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.440 your TV dinner on while you were sitting on the couch, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.559 so you could watch TV most efficiently while you were 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:37.760 eating dinner. And now they call that the coffee table. 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.120 You just stoop over a little bit right, or the 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:46.000 sink eating over the sink. I don't know what that is. 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:50.040 That's a depressing way to eat. So these are actually 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.920 called that was the brand, Swanson's TV brand, frozen Dinner. 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.840 And there they're big concept with the box. If you 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.319 look it up on on the internet. Was it looked 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:01.400 like it was designed like a little television the box 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.200 was it the t The dinner itself was like the 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.120 screen on the screen and then it had the little 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.079 dials on the bottom left and right corner and uh, 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.120 you know it look like a little TV right. And 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.720 it was ninety eight cents in nineteen fifty four, and 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.560 they sold a ton of them. Yeah, they apparently um 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:21.920 so again, remember all this came from a bunch of 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.720 turkey that was about to spoil. So Swanson start to 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.800 an industry. Swanson ordered like five thousand of them initially 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:34.240 to be made, and they hired a small battalion of 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:38.800 of um ladies in aprons and ice cream scoops and 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.800 spatchel is to assemble these things, right, and they just 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.960 had them go right down the assembly line and they 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:49.080 sold five thousand just almost immediately, and apparently in the 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.520 first year um that they were sold they sold like 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:56.960 ten million of them. So they came out with them 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.280 in nineteen fifty four, and by the end of the 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.600 first full year of production, which I guess would be nine, 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.280 they'd sold ten million of them. So they went from 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.520 initially ordering five thousand of them to selling ten million 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.480 of them in a year, so that it just hit 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.040 America just right, you know. Well, yeah, and it was 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.760 at a time where women were starting to want kind 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.640 of re enter the workforce. Gave them time that they 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.200 could still get that hot meal on the table, because 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.880 that was their job back then, right right. It gave 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.640 women a really great opportunity to provide a stark contrast 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.720 to the your husband's mother. Yeah. Yeah, Apparently there were 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.360 a bunch of men who were like, this isn't good enough. 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.480 I want my wife to cook from scratch like my mom. 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.000 Dr Freud, And if they could be like my mom 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.400 in a lot of other ways, that'd be awesome. Would 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:48.560 it kill her to wear a hairnut? Yeah, So apparently 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.240 it didn't delight all men because they weren't on board, 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.960 but would have killer to just me up in a diaper. 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.600 We should do an episode on that sometime. That's the thing. Oh, 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.240 I thought about san Freud, but on men wearing diapers 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:07.080 as adults. Yeah, it's for like I think it's called 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.720 diaper play for sex play, but but it's it's diaper centric. Yeah, 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.120 we should do a podcast on that just that. Well, 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:17.360 we can include it in like maybe a fetish one, 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.440 how about that? All right? Okay, Wow, that took a 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.240 weird turn, all of this, it really did. Uh geez, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:26.960 you got anything else on TV Dinners? That's a good 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.160 way to end it, I think. Nope. Shall we take 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.640 a break? Yep? All right, I'm gonna go change my 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:55.320 diaper and we'll talk about gelatin right after this. So, Chuck, 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.200 you were saying that um in the last one, that uh, 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:04.240 that the TV dinner hit just right and struck struck 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.840 America in part because women were starting to enter the workforce, right, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:12.280 and that was partially the results of World War Two. 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.440 World War two also changed things as far as food 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.840 and food consumption and food packaging goes, and that apparently 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.440 at the end of World War Two there were a 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:27.680 lot of companies that had gone all in into supplying 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.840 the troops food. And we're making pretty great money. But 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.440 apparently we're basically caught with a large amount of supply. 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:40.080 Um when the war ended, and they said, well, if 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.320 we don't figure out a way to get non wartime America, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.960 the regular American consumer to buy this stuff, we're going 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.359 to go out of business. Were over extended basically, and 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:55.160 so food companies, I guess, individually and on the whole, 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:01.720 taught America to basically eat what had prior to that 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.720 point being considered field rations like spam. If you remember 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.080 that podcast that kind of was where that whole movement 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:13.560 was born. Yep, spam, condensed soup, um, dehydrated stuff, freeze, 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.400 dried stuff, like. All of this came out of basically 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.600 an overstock of World War two food supplies that were 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.400 intended for troops and we're kind of repackaged and rearranged 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.679 to be served to the American consumer. And part of 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.720 that also was that same thing that TV Dinner struck, 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.919 which which was convenient. You know, like, hey, your your 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.800 husband still wants a meal and your your family still 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.959 expects you to be the one to to cook for him. Um, 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.720 but now you have to work. So what are you 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.000 gonna do? Well, we have we have something helpful for you, 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:48.840 and it's called convenience food. And one of the big 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.000 convenience foods that came out of the post war era. 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:56.400 But really it started to gather steam before then was gelatin. Yeah, 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.920 specifically jello as the name brand, but gelatine. The word 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:06.760 is from Latin gelatas, meaning jellied froze. And uh. It 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.680 was first used in Egypt, but it was really first 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:14.960 used in cooking in France. And um, you know, I 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.879 think most people know this by now, but if you don't, Um, 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.639 gelatine is as a protein and it's uh it's produced 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:30.320 from collagen from boiling animal bones, yeah, or hoofs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.239 So it's a it's glutinous basically, and it can go 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.439 one of two ways, I think, depending on what you 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:38.879 do with it. You can turn it into glue or 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.399 you can turn it into food. That's never a good start, no, 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.639 it really you know. Yeah. And a guy from the 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.880 I think the seventeenth century in France, what was his name, Peppin, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.840 someone Peppin, Dennis Poppine, who may or may not be 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.840 related to Jacques Pepin. It was great and French. He's 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.000 also a cook. Um. He was the first person to 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.720 mention it in writing. I believe, Uh, and then it 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:08.800 just kind of sat there for a while until the 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:14.240 nineteenth century, when I guess people were aware of gelatine 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.320 and that you could use it as a food, but 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:21.800 it was extraordinarily gourmet, like the average person was not 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.080 making jello at home. It was very time consuming. You 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.639 had to start from scratch and boil animal bones to 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.920 start the process of gelatine. It was the exact opposite 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:36.879 of how we think of gelatine today, which is instantaneous. Yeah. 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:42.440 So in the nineteenth century, um, there this guy named 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:46.160 Peter Cooper uh figured out a way to turn gelatine 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:51.560 into a powder form, a dehydrated gelatine powder. Um, and 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:54.679 it went absolutely nowhere for fifty years. And I was 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.000 surprised to find this out. I knew gelatine was pretty old, 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.639 but it's it's interesting how it's just kind of moved 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.760 along in these very slow little fits and starts, like 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:07.200 no one would give up on it. No, it was interesting, 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.440 which is weird because it's really disgusting if you think 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.440 about it. It should have been given up on, yeah, 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.919 and it never was. It's a very bizarre invention. It 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:17.840 almost makes you feel like there was some sort of 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.679 divine hand guiding gelatine along in its progress. Yeah. So 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.879 later on in eut named Charles Knox, uh kind of 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.240 revolutionized things when he found came up with a process 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:34.200 that resulted in a dried sheet of gelatine, and he 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.920 hired salesman to go door to door to show women like, hey, 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.120 you can add liquid to these sheets. You can make desserts, 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.280 you can make aspects, which is a really gross word. 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:49.600 I think it is. It's not it's pretty. It's a 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.960 gross thing. It's a savory gelatine. Yeah, which we'll get 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:56.000 to that. But uh. A couple of years later, Rose Knox, 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:58.960 which was that his wife, I guess yes, published a 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.520 book called Dainty Dessert Hurts, which is a book of recipes, 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.160 and things were kind of moving along a little bit. Um. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:10.360 Then there was a cough syrup company in New York 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:16.800 called Pearl Pearl b wait is that what it's called? 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:21.520 Pearl way? W W A I T. But they weren't 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:23.200 so much cough syrups. So he said, all right, let's 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:27.800 get into the food business. And uh, the wife, whose 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:30.920 name was May, said, you know, let me add some 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.640 fruit syrups to this stuff. And actually she's the one 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:36.760 who named it Jello. She came up with that name, 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:41.280 but they didn't succeed either, and sold that to their neighbor. 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:44.959 Uh Francis, is that the whole name? Or Tor Francis 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:50.040 Woodward for four hundred and fifty bucks. This person purchased 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:54.160 the name in name brand Jello, right, and he almost 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.280 fell victim to the curse of Jello as well. Right. 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.159 He could do nothing with it either, um despite some 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.840 early attempts. He apparently tried to sell it to his 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:07.840 supervisor at work for thirty five bucks even though he 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.320 paid four and fifty to it for it. So at 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:13.359 some point I guess he decided to give it another 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:17.720 go and he hired a bunch of traveling salesman, sent 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:21.560 them out to fairs, community gatherings, that kind of stuff, 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:26.120 and said, teach the people how to make the jello. 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:30.280 And this time it started to stick. Actually, Jello, Jello 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.040 kind of um hit at just the right time. Finally, 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:36.960 I should say, the world was finally ready for Jello. 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.800 Part of it had to do with, um, refrigeration, Yeah, 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:43.399 for sure, once you know, refrigeration is key for jello, 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.880 as we all know, right, And once those technologies were developed, 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:52.000 it kind of Uh well, it formed literally, it all 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:57.160 congealed and figuratively. Uh. And then once advertising started taking over, 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:01.359 like in the mid nineteen thirties, uh, General foods Um 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:05.159 had a very famous radio ad from Jack Binny, the 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:08.840 j E L l O tag, which really kind of 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:11.879 helped push things along as well. Yeah, and I noticed 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.160 that at some point they started dabbling with with other flavors. 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:19.840 I think originally they tried strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon, right, um. 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:23.800 And then they tried chocolate and they they apparently chocolate 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:27.399 didn't go over very well, so they released no. First 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:31.320 they just released it as chocolate jello. That's pretty awful. 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:33.120 And then they thought, oh, maybe we should add milk 0:24:33.160 --> 0:24:35.119 instead of water, and that's when they came up with 0:24:35.200 --> 0:24:38.720 jello pudding and they re released chocolate and that that 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:42.440 spurred like a whole pudding line, including something I grew 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:45.760 up on, which was butterscotch jello pudding. Oh yeah, man, 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:48.920