There really was a Clarence Birdseye (1886-1956). If he hadn't visited the Arctic, there may never have been frozen TV dinners. Now he is recognized as a major innovator in the food industry.

As a young scientist working in the frozen North, it didn't surprise Birdseye to note that freshly caught fish, when placed on the Arctic ice and exposed to the wind, immediately froze solid. What did surprise Birdseye was that the fish, if thawed and eaten much later, retained all of its fresh characteristics. This discovery was to create a new food industry and make Birdseye a millionaire. The youthful Birdseye had the courage to thaw out the rock hard fish weeks later and cook them for dinner, as an experiment. At the time, this was a real risk. He could have become very ill by eating "rotten" fish; but he didn't. Instead, the young naturalist...