@P_Smith: It's not that people are incapable of cooking, it is that advertisers are telling them that they are...

"consume, zombie sheeple, consume- give the business your money both for products and for bail outs, tax credits, relocation incentives, etc...."

@Trai_Dep:

Put down the Mad Men DVD set, and step away slowly. :)

I can cook. My wife and I take turns cooking dinner every night. We don't often use pre-packaged food. We hardly ever eat out. BUT, we do eat frozen meals for our lunches. It's cheaper than eating out for lunch and saves prep time in the morning, or the night before.

If you don't like frozen food, good for you. I'm happy for you that your family was (and still is) able to afford the time and money to cook "three course" meals every day. Did you always have a soup course or was it a salad course sometimes? I think it would be irresponsible to have a dessert course every day, also.

I am glad that you learned to cook at a young age. But kids who DO learn to cook at a young age are usually fostered by their parent to do so. The right type of foods for the youngins to cook and all, etc... etc...

That is not the case always. I cooked a lot of stuff when I was a kid, but would not be certainly classified as a traditional of meat, veggies, starch and desert...

I am just not particularly fond of people who put down food, not realizing that to some it's good! Just like dorm food. God, I went to college and got 3 sqaures a day.. Lots of kids I know did not like it... I was always like-- "Sweet!"

That's all, not slings and arrows at you! :)

CB at 11 can be sad, if that's all the kid can have.
CB at 31 is sad, if you can't do anything else...

My favorite is the Sour Cream and Onion. Mmmmmm.

My parents absolutely refused to eat junk like TV dinners. It was homemade or nothing - the only packaged foods we ate were frozen french fries or frozen vegetables as part of a prepared meal. It's one of the few things I am glad they passed onto me.

Once I moved out and lived alone, I realized why they didn't buy them both from reading the labels and from seeing them for the first time as an adult (without ever having eaten them as a kid). "Puke in a box" was my first response upon seeing them.

Honestly, are people so incapable that they can't make a three course meal in the same 20 minutes it takes to heat that garbage? Put a chicken breast and vegetables in a pan to boil and bake fries in an oven at 200C (400F). It would taste better and be a hell of a lot healthier too.

High cuisine at my house was saved for the holidays-- an actual roast chicken or a canned ham.

I grew up on Chef B./Franco-American/Swanson/Morton/Banquet diet with some fried Spam thrown in for good measure.

Usually turkey or salisbury steak with peas, corn, and cobbler for dessert. Cobbler...always cobbler.

Jambalaya is the best MRE.

And the thing all bad MREs have is that they contain large slabs of dry, flavorless pressed meat.

@trk182: Today's MRE's are better? Wow, I liked the Gulf War I ones I've had.

Yeah. They are basically potato paste cooked into a stackable shape and salted like all hell. In fact , several countries inculding one that I will not name that lies between Canada and Mexico , made them change from calling themselves "Pringles Newfangled Potato Chips" to "potato crisps" a few years back.
Oddly , for as long as they have been around,Pringles have never been a real money maker for Proctor & Gamble. In many years ,they have lost lots of $$ because their cost to produce is so high. I love 'em. Especially the Pizza , Spcy Guacamole and Salt & Vinegar varieties...

@varro: ugh, Michelena's dinners are 99cents each at my supermarket, and they are worse than elementary-school-lunch. F-ing DISGUSTING.

@ViperBorg:
keep in mind... that was 1953 when it was introduced at that price

@samurailynn: I liked Kid Cuisine, they came with a prize in them.

Honestly frozen dinners were much better before the microwave. You can still oven them, and they will generally taste better, but the companies have changed flavor profiles, and such to work well when prepared in a microwave.

@trk182: The absolute worst is the ham slice, you can put tobasco, cheese, or anything else you can find on that piece of meat, it still tastes like crap.

90's era MRE's yes...today's no.

The MRE of today is MILES ahead of what was around for Gulf War I.

The first Swanson TV Dinner - made up of three sections containing turkey with cornbread dressing and gravy, sweet potatoes and buttered peas - went on sale in 1953 priced at 98 cents.

Ten million of the cartons, innovatively packaged to look like a TV screen complete with knobs, disappeared from US shop shelves in 10 months, as viewers settled down to munch as they watched number one show I Love Lucy.

I remember eating TV dinners back in the 70's once in a while... good times, bad food.

@regcrusher: They may be lean, but they make up for that with sodium. Hope you don't have high blood pressure, or that stuff will give you an aneurism.

@Ben_Q2: LOL.. never thought of it that way. there's nothing wrong with giving a kid something like this as a treat. now if you start feeding them these for dinner every night, I will call CPS on you. :)

@JulesNoctambule: I can't get into TV dinners anymore, but given the opportunity I will eat pizza rolls all night long.

@AlteredBeast: I just added you as a friend, because anyone who likes Mitch Hedburg kicks ass in my book.

Odd thing is my little one gets one a week. She likes them. I do not. I see it this way, if she will get a Rib Eye stake dinner. I can give her fish sticks.

"I like the ones made by Amy's Organics."

At the risk of sounding like a shill, Amy's rocks.

@Mr_D: maybe you missed the part where they said it was a "joke" by Mitch Hedberg R.I.P.

@Parapraxis: But isn't part of Pringles' "thing" that they are made from reconstituted potatoes, not actual potato slices?

TV Dinners aren't that bad. Once you find a proper brand that suits your pallete, I see no shame in consuming those products (I would prefer the ones without the plastic/glass shards though). I just wish they came in sensible portions.

If you think TV dinners are bad you've never be able to stomach MRE's.

"I think Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls."

So a Pringle's can hold how many SERVINGS of potatoes?

I did know these awful things were invented in the 50's. But I didn't know about the unsold turkey thing. Either way, they still taste like crap, almost like they were left over from the 50's.

I think Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But Pringles was a laid-back company. They said "Fuck it. Cut 'em up."

This reminds me of the Mitch Hedberg joke about Pringles being a tennis ball company, but were delivered potatos instead.

Hmm. I learned something today.