Blast from the past: tune into menus and see TV dinners break out of compartmentalized days of yore

Nation's Restaurant News, May 12, 2003 by Ron Ruggless

Chefs can channel creativity in a number of ways, even through dinnerware and nostalgia, to create menu items that happen to fit in with their guests' desires.

Such was the case for Bill Bracken, executive chef at the 197-room Peninsula Beverly Hills, when dinnerware and culinary ideas converged to provide a room-service menu of creative, timely "TV Dinners" that hearken back to meals with Milton Berle and the cusp of color television.

It so happened that his debut of the gourmet TV dinners coincided with the 50th anniversary of the divided metal-tray meal by C.A. Swanson & Sons. The first one, which was introduced in 1958 with turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes and peas, sold for 98 cents.

A spokeswoman for the Peninsula Beverly Hills says the popularity of the in-room TV dinners seems to follow two trends among hotel guests: staying in to eat and enjoying things that remind them of home.

At the Peninsula Beverly Hills, Bracken satisfies both requests by providing such TV dinner entrees as Grandma Bracken's all-beef meat loaf with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy or Bill's home-style potato-crusted sea bass served complete with dessert on a porcelain compartment tray. He says the idea came about slowly, all from a shopping trip to a kitchen-supply store.

"I saw those TV trays, the porcelain trays with compartments," Bracken recalls. "It brought back some nostalgia from home. I actually bought one of them and took it to the hotel. I said to myself, 'There's got to be something I can do with this.' TV dinners were the last things on my mind when I bought it.

"I'd originally thought of serving an entree in the restaurant bento-box style," he adds, referring to the traditional Japanese compartmentalized serviceware. "But it made perfect sense for room service, because guests usually have the TV on anyhow."

And the hotel guests have taken to TV dinners like ardent fans to "Friends."

"People who come here travel a lot," Bracken theorizes, "and I'm sure they get more than their share of lobster and foie gras and typical hotel things. Sometimes they just want something homey--simple comfort food. It's appealing when you have the opportunity.

"Guests have loved it," he continues: "It's surprising. Right now I've got a printer's proof of the new room-service menu, and we're expanding the TV dinner section. 1 started with meat loaf and chicken-fried steak--and now I'm putting on some things that are a little more modern because it has gone over so well."

The TV dinner section of the menu, which is identified by a small television-shaped icon, makes up about 30 percent to 40 percent of sales. Prices range from $24 to $28. "There's a certain price-value relationship that people have in their minds, and we want to be cautious about that," Bracken adds.

Besides the classic meat loaf, chicken-fried steak and updated sea bass, Bracken offers potatoes and country-sausage gravy as well as beef stroganoff with peas, carrots and pearl onions.

"We started out with a small section on the menu, trying to feel out how people would like it, what their reaction would be," he says. "It's been a neat little deal that has endeared itself to people." His "American Classics" TV dinners have been expanded to include a "New American Classics" section.

In April, the hotel added TV dinners with lemon-cilantro poached chilled salmon. "It's a cold one," Bracken explains. "Going into the springtime, I thought it would be good to put a cold dish on there. It will be served with a cucumber salad and marinated mozzarella and tomatoes."

The menu also features a vegetarian version. "Four of the five compartments will be different types of vegetables," he says with such preparations as grilled, steamed and marinated.

The menu microcosm also appeals to those on high-protein diets. "We avoid bread and the bad carbs," says Bracken.

Bracken and his team have worked tirelessly on their versions of the TV dinners to erase the image of frozen' foods. The peas and carrots are fresh English peas and baby carrots, "not the diced, frozen stuff you used to get," he says. Fresh egg noodles are used with the beef stroganoff, and rolls are the house-made, pull-apart variety.

Desserts include warm apple cobbler and warm berry crisp, with the room-service waiter slipping a scoop of ice cream on top before taking the trays into the room. A warm, flourless chocolate cake also is on me menu.

And then there is the piece de resistance. All TV dinners are served on an old-fashioned wooden TV tray if the guest is dining alone, though he does have the option of receiving the traditional wheel-in cart. Silverware is rolled up in a napkin, and the tray, covered traditionally with aluminum foil, is uncovered for the guest.

While Bracken, 37, didn't time his TV dinners to coincide with Swanson's Golden Anniversary of the portable meal, its tapping into nostalgia has worked out well.

He says he remembers the TV dinners of his youth, however, in rural Kansas, where he was raised. The foiled delicacies were a rare treat.