If you were hosting a 70s style party what food and drink would you have?

[keiratwiceknightly]

So a drunken night resulted in this idea...

We've thought

Babycham/snowballs
Vodka martinis with an olive
Starter
Fondue
Cheese and pineapple hedgehog
Devils on horseback
Main
Coq au vin? A really yellow curry? What about vegetarian? Were there any of those in the 70s🤣??
Dessert
Black Forest gateau
Something else?

Any more ideas welcome.

It depends on whether you are going for a buffet or a formal dinner or supper.
My parents hosted a lot in the 70s.
Buffet's consisted of vol au vents, sausage rolls, egg mayonnaise (egg halves in a shallow dish with home made mayonnaise spooned over and a sprinkle of paprika), cold joints with a carving knife provided, poached glazed salmon. Potato salad, ambrosia salad, English round lettuce, sliced tomatoes (sometimes in aspic), cubed beetroot (also in aspic). Buffet sweets would be individual things like eclairs, fruit salad, pouring cream.
Supper parties were lasagne with garlic bread and salad. My mother was ahead of her time on this.
Curry in the house wasn't really a thing (unless you were Asian obv): vesta meals were available but grim. Certainly not for entertaining.
Dinner parties were formal but the food wasn't necessarily so by our modern standards. It just had a 'fancy' name : Steak Diane, Coq au vin, Beef stroganoff, chicken kiev.
Starter for a dinner party would be fruit juice, a thin soup or seafood (prawn cocktail a classic).
Black Forest gateau is a dinner party dessert as it's so loaded with kirsch it doesn't hold shape well when cut (or at least the UK 1970s version didn't) so not great for buffets!

There's a great cookbook on this: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910931381/ref=asc_df_191093138157290544/?hvlocphy=1006462&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=310882654267&creative=22110&hvpone&hvlocint&creativeASIN=1910931381&th=1&hvpos=1o2&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforum-21&hvtargid=pla-508501898127&hvrand=10114982562058172470 but it is a collection of extreme examples. Most people ate normal food 'jazzed up a bit', often ill-advisedly!

definitely vol au vents

Sterilised cream

The height of sophistication for my Mum was vol au vents, made with campbell's condensed mushroom soup and a tin of sliced mushrooms. They were served warm and were absolutely revolting, but others seemed to like them.

Melba toast with a pate that they used to buy in a ceramic loaf tin....I've no idea of delis still do that, perhaps they do? The top of the pate had a thin layer of jelly with sliced oranges embedded in it, so I'm guessing it was a duck pate.

Duck a la orange, now that I've been reminded of it with the pate memory.

My favourites were the cheese and pineapple on sticks, along with the massive bowl of skips and dry roasted peanuts that were put out to nibble on.

Oh, serve your fruit salad in a hollowed out pineapple. I remember people oohing and aahing as I listened in from upstairs.

A version of baked Alaska made with a cored sliced pineapple with the middle stuffed with icecream and then meringue piped on the outside before putting in a scorching oven for 5 mins was the first thing I ever made. Put the top of the pineapple back on before serving for maximum impact. I guess these days you'd just brown the points with a culinary blowtorch.

Chicken in a basket was very de rigeur

I’ll just leave this with you. 😇

Dry roasted didn't hit the UK until 80s.
The fact that I remember where I was when I had my first dry roasted peanut is probably why I'm the size I am!

@TheFaerieQueene there was no need for that

Sherry, tongue and Werther's Originals. Most people in their 70's tend to like those things.

You will need some orange and brown decorations and see if you can get a shag rug and a couple of lava lamps (although is that more late 60s?)

You need a Party 7. I'm sure I saw one recently. I think it was in Morrison's

TheFaerieQueene Ha! That brought back memories. I've told my kids that we used to get served up bananas sliced lengthwise on toast with cheese melted on top under the grill, but I'm not sure they believe me. I used to like it, but I can't bring myself to try it now.

My mum always served the same menu at 1970s dinner parties:

Salmon mousse
Rack of lamb
Boozy chocolate mousse

So mostly mousse in fact. I'm really wanting a lemon meringue pie right now. We had that a lot in the 70s.

Syllabub for pudding - proper posh.

And the Sound of Bread on the music centre.

Some kind of fish paste sandwiches, or if you're being posh then tinned salmon was obligatory

Pan pipes music playing in the background
Harry Nilsson also.

www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/7-gross-foods-your-grandparents-ate-that-we-taste-tested/

Ah the old gingernut log - the stuff of legend.

My mum used to do a hors d'ouvre plate including egg mayonnaise, some thin ham,cucmber etc. Then main course might be a posh pie. Posh puds might be charlotte russe or profiteroles. Very sophisticated in our house we were.

For ordinary meals with guests, lemon meringue pie and jelly whip were always popular.

What ever Beverley served in Abigail's Party.

I worked I an 'up market' restaurant in the 70s. So here is a sample of the starters we served - Prawn cocktail, Avocado vinaigrette or with prawns. Grilled grapefruit with a glaze cherry on top, tomato, orange or grapefruit juice served in a tall wine glass with a teaspoon on a saucer. Pate and smoked salmon.
For mains we did a lot of Italian food as the chef was Italian but it was very posh as no one did Italian apart from mac and cheese or from a tin at home.
Mains:- Steaks with sauces such as pepper or mushroom sauce, steak tartar, Osso Booco, Lasagne, Spag. Bol. Cannelloni, Chicken Kiev, Chicken stuffed with cheese and ham.
Black forest, Pear bel Helene, Ice cream and black cherries, Zabaglione, and Cassata were some of the sweets.

Arctic Roll.

And Vienetta?

Loads of great ideas here. Def doing orange juice in a glass on a doily!

I've already warned the kids that I'll be sending them to sit in the car with an open bottle of coke and a packet of salt and vinegar.

duck with cherries, duck with orange or duck surprise

just don't beat the car with a branch when you and the car breakdown

oh and an extra bowl for the car keys..

I miss vol au vents. And to PP, yes angel delight does exist. I've got some in my cupboard. I must have grown up in some weird time warp, as we had these things at all our buffets growing up, despite me being a nineties kid!

Anything on a stick works. Any combo of cheese, mini sausages, pickled onions and pineapple chunks. Definitely stuck in a hedgehog shape out of a half melon or pineapple covered in aluminium foil. Mini gherkins! In a glass partitioned serving dish.

Cinzano!