TV Dinner

I was eating a frozen entrée – what in Olden Days was called a TV dinner – and I couldn’t help wonder, “What ingredient do they put into these dinners to make them all taste the same?”

Because they do. Taste the same, that is. And not in a good way.

Now I’m aware that a steak fajita dinner tastes different from a meatloaf and mashed potatoes dinner. And yet, there’s an aftertaste from each that is disgustingly similar and makes one swear to never eat another TV dinner – excuse me, I meant to say frozen entrée.

Once, many yarns ago when I was a teenager, a neighbor who managed a frozen dinner factory took me to his factory and gave me a tour. At the end of the tour, he and I went to his office and he commanded a worker bee to bring us a plate of fried chicken, which was used in one variety of dinner (I mean, entrée) that the factory produced. The fried chicken was delicious. I didn’t taste a hint of TV-dinner in that fried chicken. But freeze it and then heat it up, and you’ve got a different animal.

Maybe the secret ingredient is sprayed onto the food just before it goes into the box. Whatever it is, all the TV dinner companies use it. Dang it! I mean frozen entrée companies. I’ll never get the hang of living in the 21st century.