u/RedKittieKat via Reddit.com
We’ve been living the good life of frozen food for about 80 years, and in the 1970s, things weren’t too different from what they are now. We’ve still got Stouffer’s and Swanson’s. We’ve still got lots of mac and cheese and pot pies. But what else was going on in the '70s? What are the best things, the ones we miss?
Take a look at these 10 popular frozen foods from the 1970s.
Chef Boyardee may be known for his contributions to the pasta world, but he also used to crank out a mean frozen pizza. You famously didn’t get much cheese with these things, but hey, bread and tomato sauce is good too.
You don’t really see a lot of frozen veal, do you? That’s definitely for the best. What a bummer that would be. Either way, Swanson’s was shipping out veal parm dinners back in the day. Miss those days? Well, it might be good to remember that this is how the New York Times described this meal in 1975: "Breaded chopped veal mediocre and not enough cheese to make it parmesan. String beans mushy and peach cake cobbler gluey."
In an attempt to sell a different style of Pop-Tarts to adults, Kellogg’s cooked up “Danish Go-Rounds” which barely made it past 1975. Like Pop-Tarts, they were toaster pastries filled with goop. Unlike Pop-Tarts, nobody wanted them enough to keep them alive.
In the '70s, Swanson introduced this larger-portion variation of the regular TV dinner, claiming it was for those who wanted to "eat like a man" and people with a "hearty appetite." Hawked in TV commercials by the likes of football Hall of Famer Mean Joe Greene, it came in versions such as fish 'n' chips, Salisbury steak, fried chicken, and turkey pot pie. More than 40 years later, you can still get a microwaveable Hungry-Man dinner, albeit not without some health concerns.
Swanson is a dinner brand now, but in the '70s, frozen breakfasts were popular. 20 minutes in the oven is hardly quick and easy, but if you’ve got other things going on in the morning, that might do the trick.
Morton was a prominent force in the freezer aisle of any grocery store in the 1970s, but when it was acquired by ConAgra Foods in 2000, the brand was sadly discontinued. Fried chicken, Salisbury steaks, ham, and the rest of the usual TV dinner suspects were all available.
These frozen TV dinners were aimed at kids, though according to this particular packaging, they were only tested on Canadian children. I wonder what the deal with that is.
Pizza rolls are a timeless goodie. Back in the '70s, before Totino’s was Totino’s, it was called Jeno’s, which means you already know what these taste like.
Bird’s Eye also tried its hand at a global dinner series called International Recipes. There were Italian options, Japanese options, Mexican options, and more. I think that’s just what Trader Joe’s does now.