FOOD IN THE FREEZER OR FROZEN FOOD

Odd, isn't it, some of the things one thinks about and how one connects the information.

I was thinking about how cold it was when we were home for a funeral in late December of 1981. After the funeral, mother got all the hot dish that was left over from the dinner in the church basement. The people brought it over to the house in coolers, like you would bring to the lake. I remember a couple of them and they had a lot of product in them. Obviously if you wanted a serving, you had to break it off.

Old Trunks is certain that my grand parents and yours as well, hung meat in barns and sheds to preserve throughout the winter. People didn't have freezers, they didn't even have electricity! The people of New Solum, as we have previously learned, snared game; shells were expensive.

Even much later, my grand parents had a little shed on the back of their property line. In the winter, this was their deep freeze. There was a foot trodden path to the shed. Grandma would put on her over shoes and tramp to the shed where she kept homemade donuts and ginger cookies to serve for lunch. The items were placed on a cookie sheet and covered with a dampen muslin dish towel. The oven was heated to 200 degrees, turned off, and the treats were placed in the oven to thaw. Oh for a warm, homemade doughnut sprinkled with sugar.....

It wasn't until the early fifties that all this frozen food idea really became socially acceptable. The Swanson brothers, on the advise of one of their salesman, began making TV dinners to look like TV as the TV craze hit the airways.

Not only did TV dinners become popular, the first were turkey, dressing, and peas, but TV trays, as well. People ate the aluminum compartmentalized dinners in front of the TV! Are you shaking your head in agreement?

The second year, Swanson's added mashed potatoes and cranberries. They sold for 98 cents and ten million dinners were sold. The peas were always shriveled up, the dog wouldn't even eat them.

Shall we say they were cool dudes?

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