This entire thing started as a lark.

It was nostalgia I was after. If you are around my age (Gen X) then this situation might seem familiar to you: it’s Friday night. Your parents have left you and maybe a sibling home alone for the first time. The oldest of you is about 14. They have taught you how to use the oven, and left TV Dinners in the fridge. Before they left, they took you to the video store to pick out a movie to watch.

Now I don’t know when TV dinners kind of became “not a thing” any more. I guess my family stopped eating them around the time Lean Cuisine came out, since quick, fairly tasty microwave-able meals weren’t yet a thing, and waiting 5 mins on the microwave was a lot better than the Ordeal: wait for the oven to preheat (10-15 mins), then wait for your TV dinner to cook (40-45 mins) only to realize your meal has a temperature resembling that of lava, which means you can wait another 5 minutes for it to cool, or do what we really did: shovel way too hot bites of food into our mouths, huffing and puffing so as not to get burned, and complaining about being so hot, because it’s been an hour since you started dinner and you’re hungry.

It always appealed to me as a kid because I liked the idea of a complete meal in a single container. You cook it all at once, it’s all ready all at once, and BOOM – dinner handled. I loved it. As a tween in the early 80s – it felt like The Future.

But before the dawn of microwave meals, the TV dinner is what we had. A foil tray, usually covered in a top layer of foil as well. The items were always fairly standard: Salisbury steak, maybe a chicken breast affair of some kind. Standard veggies: green beans,green peas, mashed potatoes, carrots, etc. And the ever present dessert option: a brownie, maybe a fruit crumble. It always appealed to me as a kid because I liked the idea of a complete meal in a single container. You cook it all at once, it’s all ready all at once, and BOOM – dinner handled. I loved it. As a tween in the early 80s – it felt like The Future. Of course – I was a kid, so I had a kid’s sense of taste. Before the events described in this review, I probably hadn’t had a TV dinner in at least 3 decades. But I am getting ahead of myself, so let me describe how this review came to be.

Lately I have been having a weird relationship with food. After way too long of cooking only for myself, I just don’t really like cooking unless I am cooking for others. If it’s just me, I just rarely want to put in the effort. At that point I’m looking mostly for basic nutrition. Things like taste, healthy vs non, etc. weren’t really things I was considering. Just shove 2000 calories in my face hole and try to also cover the RDAs for various nutrients/vitamins.

Sadly this led to having to use Capitalism’s bastardiest of bastard children: UberEats. Which, fine- it exists, and clearly provides a service most of us wanted, because oh man do they move a lot of food around. Problem is, I started paying a bit more attention to my monthly food spending and jumpin Jesus on a pogo stick- you could feed a family of eight on what I was spending for just me 90% of the time. Like, ridiculous amounts of money. But you need to understand: I was using UberEats for 1 meal every day and 2 meals most days. I didn’t always get lunch, because I either would just snack throughout the day or just have a bowl of cereal or something. So for a single person, with lunch being a single menu item, and dinner being a 50-50 split between a single item and two items, I was hitting like $500-600 a MONTH just to eat! So that’s a little crazy. I mean I don’t struggle financially, really, and am def not rich, so that kind of money is decently steep for me, but (obviously) not un-doable. So another solution needed to be found.

Now before I had my issues with cooking, I was using HelloFresh, but that’s def cooking and I def didn’t want to get back into that. Had used Freshly a few years back, and recalled it being decent, if somewhat limited. So I signed back up for a 4-meal-a-week plan, and supplemented with various kinds of boxed/canned things: mac n cheese, soup, tuna, etc. I hadn’t really considered frozen dinners- since as I said – that hasn’t really been a thing in my world for decades- but during a casual browse through my grocer’s freezer, my eyes landed upon the Hungry-Man Salisbury Steak Dinner. One of my favorites as a kid. The wave of nostalgia was palpable, and I was genuinely surprised they even still existed. Couldn’t recall the last time I had seen one or seen a commercial for one. Was not even aware that Hungry-Man still existed as a brand. But there, right in front of my eyes was (seemingly at least) that very thing.

So mostly on a lark, as I said, I grabbed one just to see what would happen. Would it taste like I remember? Would I think it tasted awful as an adult? I was eager to find out.

I want the oven to take what seems like an eternity to preheat. I want to wait agonizingly long for the full 40-45 minutes while my dinner cooks, and to basically feel like I’m starving by the time it’s ready.

The Experience. Updated.

There was a pretty huge difference before I even opened the box, as I noticed when I turned it over, it had microwave instructions, claiming it could be ready in 4-6 minutes! But oh no no, friends. That is not the Hungry-Man experience I am seeking. I want the oven to take what seems like an eternity to preheat. I want to wait agonizingly long for the full 40-45 minutes while my dinner cooks, and to basically feel like I’m starving by the time it’s ready. The anticipation and waiting is part of it, and I wouldn’t want to take it out. The instructions were basically the same as I remembered from my childhood: cut out the portion of the overwrap that’s over the dessert, and stick ‘er in the oven on a baking sheet. So I popped it in, set a timer for 40 minutes, and began the wait.

I have to say – waiting is a lot better now. I have the internet. I have video games. I have streaming media. I can recall having to either time things correctly so that the meal would be ready by the time whatever show I wanted to watch was starting, or waiting to put on the movie until dinner was ready, so as not to be interrupted after the movie starts. Thankfully we all managed to evolve beyond that particular Stone Age, right?

The Meal

So lest you read the rest of this review and feel sad that my taste buds aren’t functioning well, I should say up front that I tend to compartmentalize food and food experiences. What I mean is this: let’s say I go out to eat to a nice pizza shop, and get some tasty pie with a nice marinara, maybe some artichoke hearts or sun-dried tomatoes, and some spicy Italian sausage. Then the next night, I am trying to figure out what to order for dinner, and someone brings up Papa John’s as an idea. You know what I don’t say? “I just had pizza last night.” And why? Because a hand-tossed, artisan pizza with premium toppings isn’t even the same universe as Papa John’s (or any other chain pizza – not picking on Papa John’s specifically here). Those are two completely distinct experiences, and levels of taste, and context- so much so that in my mind, lumping them together as simply “pizza” makes no sense whatsoever to me. Yes, they are both pizza dough, sauce and cheese, but the similarity ends there, and even those ingredients aren’t really all that similar. If I want a really amazing pizza – I don’t order Papa John’s, but if I want a pizza I can watch a movie over and stuff in my face – I do. In my mind, those two things do not relate very closely. Different contexts, and to me- should be judged based on that context. Of course Papa John’s isn’t as good as a $35 artisan pizza that was hand tossed and cooked in a woodfire oven. But then again, Papa John’s is totally fine for $15 and the fact that it arrives at your house.

The reason I am providing that information? Because I’m about to tell you that the Hungry-Man Salisbury Steak dinner is actually pretty good. Seriously. So let me first provide some context: I am not comparing this dinner to a Salisbury Steak you might get in some sort of bistro or other fine dining restaurant. I’m not comparing it to the entirety of food in general either. I am comparing it in this context: a meal to prepare for yourself, at home, when you really don’t want to cook, and don’t want to order out, and basically just want something to stuff in your face while you binge watch Great British Baking Show. That’s it. And in that context- it achieves pretty well.

So the meal is the steaks (you get 2, maybe 2-3 oz each), cut green beans, mashed potatoes, and a brownie for dessert. Honestly it tasted about like I remembered. The steak is tender (likely due to the fact it’s not an actual ‘steak’ so much as ‘pressed and formed meat’), the gravy is good – both on the steaks and on the potatoes. The green beans are decently tender without descending into complete mush, and even the brownie was good. The beans needed a little salt, but otherwise, everything was decently seasoned. If you are on a low sodium diet, you should probably avoid, but that’s true of just about anything that comes in a box, and this meal isn’t any more egregious than any other boxed meal.

Final Thoughts

Should you eat this? Depends. If the context I described above is similar to your own – then yes. Like I said – it’s pretty decent for a meal that’s under $6, and is pleasing enough to eat.

If you think I’m some sort of commoner for even deigning to eat such pedestrian food, then it’s probably not for you.

PF9907 out.