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!

Vineetta and angle delight (not together!)
What about the crispy pancakes? I didn’t used to have them but people loved them and loads of people had them in their freezer

Sunny Delight
Doritos (we got a free bag at school when they came out)
Alcopops
Babybels
Cheesestrings

Nothing containing beef.

Pesto was posh

Pasta and pesto, and hummus with crisps/crudités to start

Also you could decorate by putting a huge Cd rack in the corner of the room and watch some episodes of Changing Rooms for inspiration

No-one ate avocados in the 90s. I still can’t eat them now having had it drummed into me that they were insanely fattening.

You might want to include jacket potatoes with cheese and beans. They were very popular. Or Marks and Spencer packet curry - quite avant garde.

Lasagne, sundried tomatoes, breadsticks with those multipack dips, tiramisu.
Chardonnay and schloer.

Oh yes, I remember the first time I had pesto: a banker friend's dinner party in Clapham in the early 90s. Definitely a big thing round then.

You need to stuff a mushroom.

Fascinated by some of these answers, most of which were 70s or 80s.
In the 90s food was allegedly more sophisticated. Yes yes to St Delia and Keith Floyd.
Sun dried tomatoes, pesto. Lots and lots of wine. French recipes.

Definitely sun-dried tomatoes. Also cherry tomatoes made an appearance around that time, along with rocket and goats cheese. Probably also balsamic vinegar.

Pesto was very sophisticated.

I would go for a delia recipe for your meal. For nibbles I would have bowls of mini party rings and Jamie dodgers, mini cheddars, cheeseleys, twiglets, space raider crisps.

Yes alcopops. Pineapple cut into quarters and covered in prawns, still banana splits and cocktail umbrellas in drinks, cheesecake became fashionable in the 90s.

Yes! Stuffed mushrooms

I remember a lot of Tuna Pasta Bake in the 90s

I'm 63. The food I ate in the late 80s/90s was pretty much the same as I eat now. Just less wine.

I still remember mum’s ‘paneer pesto’ curry to eat with rice. It was delicious.

Chicken Kiev's, potato waffles, mixed tinned veg as main, tomato soup to start, those ice-cream rolls as desert!

We had jelly whip a lot - pink jelly but with added evaporated milk to make the top frothy . When my granny felt fancy she piped cream over the top and added black cherries and dark chocolate . That was in about 1994 .

In same year my aunt had chicken supreme and boiled rice for her wedding main course - and toblerones were given out instead of sugared almonds ...

Pineapple and prawns? Are you sure?

Definitely cook something from Delia. Almost every dinner party in the 80s had something from her book in my memory

Vol au vents
prawn cocktail

Pita bread and taramasalata