Holding a 1990s dinner party - please give me some food suggestions!

[lorettalemon]

I'm holding a 1990s themed dinner party to celebrate my niece's 30th birthday as she grew up in the 90s.

Can anyone give me some suggestions of meals which used to be really popular at the time, or things you remember really enjoying if you were a child or teenager then?

I know pizza was popular, but that's so commonplace for people to eat anyway that I would like to go for something a bit more nostalgic!

Ideas for starters, mains, desert and nibbles would be much appreciated! Party decorations too if anyone can think of anything!

There aren't any vegetarians/vegans/dietary requirements to cater for, so all ideas welcome. Thank you ever so much!

Not really @rubberduckyyouretheone.

The gastropub craze began in the early 00s.

Pubs in the 90s were about crisps and lager. Only with the internet becoming a thing in the early 00s and fewer people going out in the evenings did pubs start to close in large numbers and reopen Gastro under new management (if at all)

I ate food in pubs in the 90s i think pubs were trying to get away from the crisps and beer thing they wanted you to have chips lasange and drink all afternoon.

Another one wondering why so many of these suggestions are from the 70s and 80s.

Are some of the people posting too young to actually remember the 90s, and think that until the 21st Century people ate nothing but Findus Crispy Pancakes with a cheese and pineapple hedgehog on the side and a Vienetta for pudding, with a prawn cocktail as a starter if they wanted to go really posh?

Cheese & pineapple/prawn cocktail/Black Forest Gateau = 70s.
Findus Pancakes/Vienetta = 80s (because that's when freezers and microwaves became ubiquitous and everyone embraced the ready meal).

90s food on the whole really wasn't any different from the food we eat now - the big supermarkets were well-established by then and everyone had had freezers and microwaves for so long that they were no more of a novelty than they are now.

My 1995 edition of Delia Smith's Complete Cookery course contains a forward where Delia comments that, when updating the book from earlier editions, she went through deleting numerous 'or if you can't get it, use XXXX instead' because said 'exotic' ingredients had become commonplace.

I agree with pps suggestions of using recipes from books that were popular in the 90s, such as the River Cafe Cookbook or Nigel Slater's Real Food.

The Eagle, Farringdon was the first gastropub and it opened early in 1991. The idea spread like wildfire throughout the Nineties.

I remember breaking my mixer trying to make hummus and not putting enough liquid in with the chick peas.

Definitely coulis drizzled everywhere.

origamiwarrior I definitely agree with your first two courses but it would have been a timbale of rice with the monkfish. Timbales of rice being everywhere is one of my strongest memories of the 90s.

I remember sundried tomatoes being the in thing on ready steady cook in the 90s

There's some serious mixing up of decades on this thread! 😂

There's some serious mixing up of decades on this thread!

That's because while certain foods do become very widespread for a while (pulled pork, salted caramel,) no ne cooks only new stuff. I cook food that we had as children, which my mother probably had as a child. I use recipes she had, some from my grandmother, too. There are other things I cook which my grandmother wouldn't have ever had, especially things influenced by overseas. But unless you're a food historian, you might only be aware when something became popular with your own family and friends.

I’ve been trying to work out what it feels to me was 90s enough that it isn’t really a thing any more. It felt to me, becoming an adult in that decade and starting to eat a wide range of foods, that it was when it became more widespread to think about the quality of things a bit more.

Sun-dried tomatoes really do seem to have disappeared from most places. Ciabatta as the bread in restaurants is not that common any more. Physalis on every pudding not a thing now. Roasted vegetables, particularly shaped into little stacks, are less prevalent. Rocket was every-bloody-where.

But I agree that the 90s was the start of a lot of stuff that is very commonplace now. The excitement of fresh pesto on filled pasta really can’t be recaptured!

Actually I was a big fan of Death by Chocolate and Mississippi Mud Pie puddings, both of which I haven’t seen anywhere for a very long time.

I was waitressing in the early '90s and dished up an awful lot of chocolate fudge cake that had been lightly warmed and was served with vanilla ice cream. Yummy.

Vanilla sponge tray bake with icing and sprinkles. chocolate cake with pink custard.

If you couldn’t en croute, drizzle with balsamic or tart it up with a jus or coulis it didn’t hit the table.

Olives and antipasti or blinis as nibbles.

Chocolate fondant for dessert.

Also you needed 200 Silk Cut, shares in an Australian vineyard and a bottle of Ouzo/Cointreau/Baileys with a large glass vase of sticks and twinkly lights.

More things!

Raspberry or white wine vinegar everywhere as well as balsamic. And as others have said, coulis on every single pudding.

There is a cafe near me that I think is trying for 90s levels of sophistication that does a little zig zag dribble of ketchup on the plate when they give you a sandwich.

Fajitas

Garlic bread

Sara Lee Chocolate Gateaux

Baked Cheesebake with forrest fruits

Teeny tiny portions on giant plates. Voila! Nouvelle cuisine.

opinionatedfreak

Oh yes, I often served a selection of posh sausages - from the posh sausage shop which was also in Farringdon.

I definitely cooked from this book in the late '90s. Perhaps someone could recreate his hair for added authenticity?

Nouvelle Cuisine was the 1980s. The 1990s were all about simpler cooking.

Viennetta definitely.
Avocados were definitely eaten in the 90s, with prawns/mayonnaise/olive oil.
Cannelloni - with spinach & ricotta- or lasagne.

Nope! Vienetta was launched in 1982.

Loads of things were eaten in the 90s that aren’t ‘90s food’ in the way the OP means. My parents had some avocado dishes from the 70s that we used to find fascinating as prawns with avocado was something we would never have considered making for guests.

Like many posters on here, I started cooking and eating out as a young adult in the 90s. I loved Nigel Slater’s early books as a student. It was all about fresh flavours and fairly simple compared to the 70s and 80s. The move towards high quality ingredients started as recipes were more pared down. The River Cafe started the trend for fresh Italian cooking that moved away from the veal in sauce and spag bol of the trattorias. Blair and his friends went to Tuscany on holiday. We went from dried Parmesan flakes in a shaker to shaving fresh Parmesan onto rocket salad.

I'd agree with that. I think the 90s was a really good time for food, generally. There was an explosion in availability of previously difficult to find components and as you say a focus on fresh good quality ingredients. People started using butchers and fishmongers again, it was much easier and cheaper to eat out well than it had been previously, there was an entire movement dedicated to helping you make food that was novel and enjoyable for not much effort. It was good.

Sundried everything

Thai green curry

Served with a pint of lager and a fag (ladette style)