I lived on a lot of TV dinners in grad school in the 1970s and they were far superior to what we were served on 48 for breakfast and lunch in May 2019.
Oh, come on now. The 1970s Swanson salisbury steak and turkey tv dinners with powdered mashed potatoes were definitely not "far superior" to what is served on Amtrak today. Mind you, neither are good - but the 1970s tv dinners were downright awful.
I will take that Salisbury Steak Dinner over the May 2019 Lake Shore fare any time. I must have had that dinner once a week years ago and I suspect it had less salt than the present Amtrak meals.
Nostalgia can be a strong thing. Those old tv dinners were absolutely loaded with sodium. And I'm surprised that you would prefer chopped meat and powdered mashed potatoes over real cuts of beef and real potatoes. You are certainly in the minority. Although if memory serves me correctly, the chicken I had in the chicken alfredo dish (now gone from Amtrak's menu) was made of compressed chicken.
I realize that we all have different tastes. I probably had at least 40 or 50 of each of these TV dinners over a period of several years. Since I was a repeat customer many times over, I obviously considered them quite satisfactory in terms of taste, price, time and convenience, nostalgia aside. I would usually make a decent size salad (about 4 times the size of the present Amtrak salad) to accompany the meal as I dined alone in my apartment nostalgically living the ascetic life.
I've long wondered how a flavorless and nutritionless web of cellulose snuck into the lettuce family.
I was thinking the red wine braised beef, but I now remember that it has polenta. But you get my point. A salisbury steak is not the same as real pieces of beef.
It is a big myth that iceberg lettuce is nutritionless. This article explains it well:
After reading the article I'm still not sure if you're an expert on nutrition or just unfamiliar with the role of hyperbole in casual speech.
You aren't exactly known for your hyperbole. Quite the opposite. You are usually zealously literal. So forgive me for assuming that you were not engaging in it this time.After reading the article I'm still not sure if you're an expert on nutrition or just unfamiliar with the role of hyperbole in casual speech.
Forgetting the nutritional side, sometimes FRESH iceberg lettuce adds just the right crunch to a hamburger, Even in a salad it's just the right touch. At which time I'll have to find my nutrition elsewhere.After reading the article I'm still not sure if you're an expert on nutrition or just unfamiliar with the role of hyperbole in casual speech.
A fresh layer of iceberg can form a convenient separator between the meat and condiments of a burger. It can also work as a wrap for Asian style chicken appetizers or paired with blue cheese and bacon in the form of a wedge. Where it really falls apart for me is when it's used as cheap filler in an entree salad. Where I live restaurants expect us to spend $10-15 on a salad representing maybe fifty cents worth of iceberg filler plus a buck or two worth of toppings and dressing. Back in the era of refer cars iceberg was probably the best they could manage but these days I'm surprised it continues to maintain a stranglehold.
That makes a lot of sense. They served their purpose well, at least for the era. And, no, they don’t serve their purpose on Amtrak well. I know I’m beating a dead horse, but it would be very easy for Amtrak to have premade meals that are at much higher quality.
Trust me, the 50s TV Dinners ( mostly Swanson)were terrible, just like the swill being slung in Amtrak "Sleeper Lounges " right now!
please tell me it’s not that bad.
That's Diner talk from Film Noir and Mickey Spillane stories!
