This is Mow Street Radio from PRX and I'm your host Christopher Kimball.

Today it's our episode about grocery stores, how they work behind the scenes, what sells and what doesn't,

plus the rise of the superstore.

In 1956, when the first American style supermarket opens overseas in Rome,

people were shrieking with the light.

A woman started running up and down the aisle screaming,

this must be heaven.

We'll also find out what new products we'll be seeing in the upcoming year.

I actually did this whole deep dive on the rise of like spiritual beverages and snacks.

So like, you know, instead of a shaman, you have Aroon. Aeron.

Stories from the supermarket.

First up, we're visiting the freezer aisle.

Pull up a chair America.

Sit right down there America.

Swanson's cooking. So the question is, how did TV dinners change the world?

So the question is, how did TV dinners change the world?

I'm joined now by Jeff Swiston, he's author of TV Dinners, Unboxed, The Hot History of

frozen Meals. Jeff, welcome to Milk Street.

Wow, what a pleasure. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me. There were a number of things going. What a invention of and surge in TV dinners. What were some of the things going on in the

culture at the time? Yeah, you know macro level you had the baby boom, you had

prosperity, all those things we sort of note about the 50s I really like

discovering through the the research that you know we sort of have romanticized

...