
Observed annually on March 6, National Frozen Food Day has been celebrated since 1984.
Proclamation 5157 was signed by President Ronald Reagan in which it said: “Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim March 6, 1984, as Frozen Food Day, and I call upon the American people to observe such day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”
Credit for the flash freezing of fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood to preserve flavor and quality is given to American inventor, entrepreneur and naturalist Clarence Frank Birdseye II.
Food preservation by freezing had been done long before Birdseye had ever begun experimenting with the process. Birdseye discovered the key was freezing the food quickly. Flash freezing forms small ice crystals which prevent the cell walls from bursting. Large ice crystals turn the food to mush.
Birdseye applied for a multitude of patents, but one of his earliest is from 1927 for a process to flash freeze foods. Consider that in 1930 only 8 percent of American households had refrigeration units in their homes. A frozen food patent in 1927 was a visionary step in a long chain of events to make frozen foods a marketable product.
Frozen dinners, first known as TV dinners, came on the scene in 1954 and were introduced by Swanson. These pre-cooked meals only needed to be heated through in the oven to be ready to eat. No cooking skills were required. Pre-heat the oven, cook for the required length of time and eat.
- Frozen products do not require any added preservatives because microorganisms do not grow when the temperature of the food is below ?9.5 °C (15 °F).
- It is believed that first use of freezing food in industrial food sales took place in the 1800s. The story goes that a Russian company froze a small quantity of duck and geese and shipped them to London.
- The first complete frozen meal was not actually the TV dinner; it was food prepared for commercial airline flights.
- In 1945, Maxson Food Systems, Inc. starting making their so-called “Strato-Plates,” meals that were created specifically for consumption on airplanes (both by military and civilian passengers). Each frozen meal included a meat, a vegetable, and a potato, and was meant to be reheated for in-air chowing.
- Freezer burn is the result of air hitting frozen food and allowing the ice to sublimate.
- The Celentano brothers, who owned their own Italian specialty store in New Jersey in the 1950’s, are believed to have marketed the first frozen pizza in 1957.
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