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.

Mateus Rose
Blue Nun
Pony (the little drink with a big kick)
Cherry Brandy
Watneys Party 7
Cinzano Bianco

Has to be a buffet surely?
Vol-au-vents (mushroom n chicken)
Massive bowl of salted peanuts
Hotdog, cheese, pineapple hedgehog
Flan (not quiche, FLAN)
Savoury rice
Pek tinned ham in aspic
Tuna open buns with salad cream
Celery wth Primula squeezed on the middle
Party Rings
Iced Gems
Black Forest gateau
Inexplicable bowl of radishes
Tinned olives
Probably more ham

I have an excellent cookery book called The Prawn Cocktail Years. As it's on loan to my sister I can't immediately recall the author but it is full of dishes mentioned on this thread and plenty more. I think I saw it referred to somewhere, liked the idea of retro food and found a copy for very little on eBay.

I'm surprised no one has said the sweet and sour vinegar salad yet?
French bread pizza cheese and tomato, luncheon meat slices on cocktail sticks, plain crisps and salted peanuts.

My parents did big parties in the 70s and 80s- lots of their friends did too as there was fuck all else to do and we lived in the arse end of nowhere.
For canapes I remember devilled eggs, zig zag tomatoes with something on it but my favs were ritz crackers with a swirl of Primula cheese and half a picked onion or slice of tinned olive on top. I loved them. Lots of booze - very very strong vodka and tonics, gin and tonics, whiskey and lemonades. Mains were things like Hawaiian Pork (pork and pineapple- boak), beef stroganoff etc. There was sometimes a whole baked salmon wich had some grapes laid along it. Puddings involved a bucket of cream generally. Wine wasn't really a thing. Noone smoked in our house but we had a stash of party ashtrays which were large shells my Dad got off the beach in Donegal. I used to have to wash them the next day.

My mum used to make cheesecake with jelly as in jelly in the cheesy bit. Philadelphia have a recipe on their website.

And chicken supreme vol au vents. I think they were made with Campbell’s condensed cream of chicken soup.

Got to have some after 8 mints too.

I remember going to a '70s dinner party where the starter was 'egg mayonnaise' which was a lettuce leaf, with a blob of mayonnaise anchoring 2 halves of a hard boiled egg, with 2 tinned anchovies draped elegantly on top.

There was also the 'avocado vinaigrette' - half an avocado filled with salad dressing. Or if you were being upmarket, prawn cocktail. I guess we've come full circle though, as avocados are the height of culinary fashion.

There was also a revolting savoury mousse dish made from combining a tin of beef consommé with Philadelphia cream cheese, decorated with lumpfish roe (fake caviar).

Prawn cocktail
Stuffed Mushrooms
Quiche Lorraine
Ratatouille
Coq au vin
Duck a l'orange
Baked Alaska
Profiteroles

I also remember M&S launching Chicken Kiev onto the market in about 1979. My god it was good. More for family dinners than parties though, although I think mu Mum did do it occasionally for a dinner party. But everyone would know it wasn't home made.

Devilled eggs are veggie, delicious and retro. I often do them for pot luck suppers and they get snapped up very quickly.

cheese and pineapple on sticks (stuck into half an upside down grapefruit) sausages on sticks in the other half grapefruit
twiglets, prawn cocktail, vol au vents, spaghetti bolognese,, coq au vin.
Crepes suzette, neopolitan ice cream with wafers. baked alaska, banana split

I was newly-married in the 1970s and I had the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook written by Mary Berry - very popular at the time.

I remember making:

-Tuna Fish Pie. Tuna in a white sauce with chopped hard boiled egg and lemon juice in puff pastry.

-Pork steaks with apple and onion in cider.

-Pork chops cooked in mushroom soup ( not Mary Berry)

Popular desserts:

-Sliced orange in syrup with Cointreau
-Fruit salad with whatever liqueur we picked up on holiday
-Trifle with crushed Cadbury's flake on top

• Pavlova. I used fresh strawberries - DMIL used tinned tinned fruit cocktail and sliced bananas.

My gran used to make a tiramisu style thing with sherry a bit like the gingernut log. It probably was just a midlands version! When I was about 7 I scarfed half of one down on the sly and got a bit tipsy. My parents didn't entertain but my gran did. Her parties always smelt like those thin cigars, cigarellos I think. If I smell them now it make me smile.

I'd love a vol-au-vent. Do they still exist? I've not had one in years! I'm going to do some with campbells for christmas if I can find them.
I don't think.theybe been mentioned but I remember Pavlova was quite popular.
That and packet cheesecake. That was early eighties. Grim.

my mum was the first vegetarian in the town I think.

She served up

Tuna plait (tuna (tinned, natch) baked in puff pastry -kind of plaited)
a variety of different quiches - a pepper one being the favourite
a lovely (not really) warm orange and carrot soup.

Tinned fruit salad for dessert
or maybe a custard tart

wine in a bamboo or whatever case. or liebfraumilch (but that may have been later).

Avocaat to drink.

or babysham.

We recently saw Abigails Party at the theatre (with Amanda Abbington) when it was on tour. It was ace.

Prawn cocktail or melon slices for the starter.

It has to be "chicken in a basket" for the main; ie pieces of deep fried chicken served on a couple of squares of kitchen paper, in a small basket That was considered the height of sophistication and was all the rage in the mid '70s. It was among the first proper "meals" I can remember being served in pubs. Before that, the only food on offer was crisps, peanuts and pork scratchings.

For dessert, Black Forest gateau, also epitomises the' 70s.

For a buffet: cheese and pineapple on sticks, vols au vents, stuffed tomato stars, sausage rolls, cheese straws, celery sticks and sausages on sticks,

Arctic Roll!😀

Are you sure chicken in a basket was the 1970s @80sMum? We had nothing as sophisticated as that in our house.

Chicken Maryland fried chicken with bananas and corn fritters

PMSL at She had some shell in her hair once and she went out to the bin and a gull attacked her, like a Hitchcock film. It was awesome.
AutumnCrow - my Mum also used to make the pudding with evap milk and jelly which came out as orange mousse, I used to love it, but not sure what my taste buds would think of it now.

Food in a basket was definitely a 70's thing, I remember having chicken and chips in a basket at a pub mid seventies and thinking it was dead sophisticated.

Yes, I definitely had chicken in a basket in a pub in the 70s. Could tell you the name of the pub too. Don't remember anyone ever serving it at home though.

Also chicken Maryland, in a restaurant. Remember thinking it was the height of sophistication!

My mum cooked a lot of Findus crispy pancakes. Angel delight for pudding (caramel was the best flavour). But only for family meals, not for dinner parties.

Lemon meringue pie and black forest gateau.

Hot dog rolls cut in half lengthways with ham on as 'open sandwiches'.

Your starter should be orange or tomato juice.

Tomatoes stuffed with cottage cheese (and chives if you are posh), melon slice with a hole filled with port.

You also need some of these. It use to amaze me how popular these bottles were as candle holders and yet I don't think I ever so one being used to pour wine.