The New Yorker’s food issue is out this week and they have complemented it online with relevant articles from their archives. Defrosted Dinners from 1945 discusses the novel concept of frozen dinners. Developed by William L. Maxton and used for airplane meals, these frozen prepared foods were first popular with the Navy. Maxton obtained permission to market them for civilians and the rest is TV dinner history (with some later innovation from Swanson). Interestingly, Maxton’s dinners were placed in “cardboard treated with a coating of phenolic resin plastic”, whereas Swanson’s dinners came in those once-familiar aluminum trays. We’ve circled back to cardboard now thanks to the microwave oven.