1960s food and drink?

[Izzabellasasperella]

I'm hosting a 1960s themed Nye party. What kind of party food and drink should I serve?
Did they have twiglets in the 60s?😀

See if you can find the book The Prawn Cocktail Years by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsay Barehsm. Full of fab recipes - chicken kiev, wiener schnitzel, duck a l'orange, beef stroganoff - chocolate mousse, banana split, crepe suzette flambée, profiteroles and of course the title dish.

Trawl the charity shops for Fanny Craddock books.

For party bits and pieces we had various kinds of vol au vent, tiny sausage rolls, asparagus rolls, sausage wrapped in bacon on sticks, cheese and pineapple, paté on squares of toast and yes twiglets.
It was all very dainty....

Tinned everything - ham, salmon, corned beef, peaches, fruit cocktail, evap and even cream.
Cockles, prawns and winkles with bread and butter were a very popular Sunday tea in our house.
Drinks- Babycham, snowball, Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry, whisky and dry ginger ale, gin and bitter lemon.

Yes!

My first primary school parties would have been in the 60s and everybody had blancmange rabbits .

Pretty much sure that anything I remember from the 70s eg vol-au-vents, sausages on a stick would have originated in the 60s .

My mum always made the flans with a flan case with jellied fruit (or pie filling) in the centre , plus trifle and fruit salad .

Salad wise - I recall when we went to my gran's for Sunday tea she always used to do sliced cucumber and onion in vinegar .

I was a teenager in the sixties (20 by the end of it) and my favourite meal out was prawn cocktail, duck a l'orange, chocolate mousse, a glass of hock and a cointreau to finish. 😂
We were way past rationing.....

You could even make your own cream using unsalted butter and milk in a hand operated Bel Cream Maker. I had a go on one in Home Economics at school in the late 60s. It was hard work.

Cream used to be expensive but now hardly anybody uses whole milk it's practically a waste product.

I'm younger than you so I don't remember 'going out' in the 1960s - but where I live that meal would have been considered sophisticated in the mid 1980s!

Bloody hell, I made that Marguerite Patten Christmas cake with my mum!!!

The rest of it - we used to have some of her recipe cards, and they were weird. They were the sort of thing 'posh' people would have at dinner parties with the managing director types, not your normal fare.

To add to the list of 60's party food: marmite pinwheels, cheese straws, celery with Primula cheese spread squeezed in a line down the middle, jam tarts and fondant fancies. Oh and mandarin jelly.

My mum had one of those cream makers. She got it at a jumble sale. It made a nice change from evaporated milk. I loved tinned cream.
Scrambled egg and sardine sandwiches were a Sunday teatime staple in our house. And milk puddings - tapioca, stewed rhubarb with semolina, macaroni pudding.

cubes of cheese and pineapple on sticks stuck into half a grapefruit
cheese and a silverskin tiny onion on sticks
sausages on sticks
twiglets
chocolate blancmange - especially shaped like a rabbit on a bed of lime jelly 'grass'
jammy dodger, party rings and little gem biscuits
bridge rolls with shipham's paste or egg mayonnaise

I think that you remember the food from the age you were at the time, so the fifties for me are jelly, bridge rolls, scones and cream (bought straight from the dairy up the road), fairy cakes etc
I went to university in the late sixties and one of my friends actually cooked duck a l'orange, followed by lemon mousse for me in her student flat. I was seriously impressed by that. 😂

I remember when I was at school in the late 60s our domestic science group made food for the annual governors meeting. We were also enlisted to serve at the event.

The menu included:

vol au vonts (which I recall were filled with chicken in Campbells condensed soup),
tiny sausage rolls,
cheese straws dipped in cayenne pepper,
sausages on sticks,
cheese and pinepple on sticks (stuck into oranges),
ham sandwiches cut into triangles (white bread of course with no crusts)
and a centre piece chocolate cake, which was decorated with piped whipped cream, and Cadbury's Flakes.

I think there was the option of glass of sherry or a cup of tea for the governors on arrival too.

As fourteen year olds we regarded this as the ultimate sophisticated feast!

Gala Pie, tinned ham, celery in a celery vase, trifle, Swiss roll, cheese and pineapple on sticks, cocktail sausages on sticks, cheese straws, primula on ritz crackers, salted peanuts, tinned salmon and vinegar sandwiches, tinned fruit salad .......

Home made chicken liver pate on toast, and tomatoes stuffed with cottage cheese & herbs or prawn cocktail were popular buffet items.

I remember when I was a kid in the 60s Ski yoghurt was the height of exotic!!

Just do some USA dishes as well OP. The sixties happened everywhere!

www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/mad-men-party-guide

Weird spongy flan cases filled with jelly and tinned mandarin oranges with some blogs of synthetic cream stuff to decorate and a glacé cherry .

Anyone remember liver sausage?

Also anyone else remember symingtons 'table creams' - like a cross between blamange and Angel delight

Was thinking back to 60s food the other day. This wont help for a party but I cant believe how much tea everyone used to drink. Start the day with a cup. Arrive at work, have a cup. 2 hours later, 'tea break'. Then lunch and a cup of tea. Tea trolley (welcome to the museum, young ones) about 3ish. Go home have cup of tea. Another after your meal and that was probably it for the day. Rarely saw coffee. Never saw bottled water. I drink 3 or 4 cups of tea a year these days. Reached saturation point many years ago, I think.

I remember making that pineapple upside down cake when I was about 10. I felt very grown up and modern

Most of the party food mentioned on this thread was identical in my childhood in the 80s. Did nothing change in 20 years?!

Every Christmas my parents had a sherry party (lots of drinking & driving!). We always had:
Twiglets
Crisps
sausage rolls
Sausages on sticks
Mushroom vol au vents
Cheese straws with paprika sprinkled on top
Cheese & pineapple
Dip made from a dried packet
I don't remember sandwiches
Mince pies as it was a Christmas do

@longwayoff you have just described my day! Although I do have coffee first thing.