Old seventies menu,when melons were gondolas

[ChrissyShenkle]

This was posted on my local Facebook from a hotel that's now closed
Hard to believe that fruit juice was a starter, and what the hell are eggs indienne?

Chateaubriand is still popular. It has been on the menu of the last 2 places that I ate in, branches of 2 different restaurant chains.

I was married in 1980 so these 70s menus are the dinner dates of my youth. Saturday nights involved dinner with my fiance at a local steakhouse where I invariably ate prawn cocktail, steak and chips, with peas and grilled tomato, then had black forest gateau and a good few Irish coffees…… It’s still probably my favourite menu! Happy days….

My mum took it up a notch. With not only ground ginger and brown sugar but she also added some brandy. This was just at Christmas.

I worked in a guest house in the mid seventies. Fruit juice orange or grapefruit was definitely a starter but not a choice. The juice was tinned and the brand was Jaffa if I recall correctly. You didn't order from a menu it was there when you took your place. Everyone ate at the same time and were served the same meal.

Oh my goodness - my mum had that! £200?!

I love liver with bacon and onions. A local restaurant has it on its menu and that's where I went for my birthday and what I had.

My mum would make this too, but without the curry/mayo. Absolutely delicious!

You can still get it today I think - my late MIL, knowing my love of cookbooks, gave me a copy about 15 years ago. It's still my go to for the treacle scone recipe there. Thankfully the oven temps are all updated (though maybe not with fan settings 🤔), I have a really old cookbook of my granny's which is all 'place in a moderate oven'!

I loved a gammon steak with pineapple....

I still do. Didn't know this wasn't acceptable in 2024!!

Then again, I'd gladly eat cheese and pineapple without any irony

@WeegieWan treacle scone sounds amazing, I’ve not heard of it before? I’m off to Google that!

@DramaAlpaca does that book have a recipe for Gardeners chicken? A friend used to make it and it was delicious but I didn't get the recipe

I'd personally be more horrified at the torture and murder of a sentient creature than wasted energy 🙄

My late DH was a collector of cookery books as well as being an enthusiastic cook and we have a collection of Aussie ones from 70s to 90s - one is Easy Meals with Mince and features sausage and pineapple pie and colonial squares, whatever they are. Another one is the Barossa CWA cookery book featuring brain and parsley sandwiches and the mysterious velvet soup.

My personal favourite is the British Miss Tuxford's Cookery for the Middle Classes, published in 1925, wth a recipe for rook pie.

That sounds like Baked Alaska. I used to do this as pudding after our Sunday roast when I lived at home. My parents thought I was so clever. 😂

@GellerYeller - ooft treacle scones are fab! It's basically 400g SR flour, 50 g sugar, 50 g butter, 2 teaspoons of salt (they are purposely only semi sweet scones), 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon mixed spice, 2 tablespoons of treacle, and milk to mix. Sieve flour, sugar, salt & spices together, rub in butter, then add treacle and milk and mix (a goodish glug, but not too much at first - you don't want a wet dough and the mix starts dry but goes wet very quickly). Knead very lightly on a floured surface and roll out to about 3-4 cm thick, cut out your scones, re-rolling only once otherwise they go tough, bake for 8 to 10 mins in a hot oven 230 C or gas mark 8. I generally drop it to 225 in my fan oven. It's hard to see when they are baked as they are a dark mix, but 10 mins is about right. 🤗

My nan would give me a hamper to take to university every term (84-88) including food and cleaning items. I got a chicken in a tin once and we had it for my birthday. We still, 40 years later laugh out loud remember the night the tin gave birth to the chicken, because that's what it seemed like, about 6 of us standing round with someone shaking, someone pulling and everyone else shrieking as this huge gloopy thing burst out.

I can remember the White House? Next to Pearson's (amazing shop)

My DM says she was vegetarian in the 70s (she wasn’t as we had Shepherd’s pie, sausages and liver and bacon casserole) but we did have some sort of loaf from a tin which was veggie and pale colour, Granose? There is a veggie cafe/restaurant (posh and and hippy) not far from where we lived and in Neal Street and some other locations veggie restaurants. So it wasn’t that hard. Vegan, probably harder yes.

Something like this? I've tagged it as sensitive as some people may see this over their breakfasts.

British food pre-2000 really did deserve its reputation as amongst the world’s worst.

The overcooked vegetables, grey meats, brought together through the medium of a gloopy sauce. You just couldn’t have got away with this in France, Spain, or Italy.

I have a particular memory of going to a supposedly nice restaurant in St Andrews in the late 90s and ordering a pizza with prosciutto, which turned out to be thinly sliced spam. This sort of thing wasn’t remotely unusual and provincial restaurants across the U.K. were invariably disappointing compared with those in Europe.

Melon with ginger is so delicious!

Fruit as a starter is great for your digestion apparently, as the process starts more quickly and the starter doesn't have to sit in your stomach for ages. Perhaps it will come back into fashion again.

Those prices! Brings tears to my eyes. And the good old Prawn Cocktail just HAD to be there - mayonnaise and tomato pureè dressing, yum yum!

Brings back memories of Chicken-in-a-Basket. Ha!Ha!

@jaundicedoutlook not my recollection. I started cooking in the late 70s and my childhood recollections whilst admittedly are of simpler things from day to day, are very fond.

Chops were served a lot - barnsley chops and pork chops with the bone in and a bit of kidney. We didn't have overcooked veg, spam or tons of grease. We did have a lot of home made savoury pies and fruit pies, more stewed fruit, more custard and blancmange. We also had some offal and it was delish - I cannot get my head around the current obsession with ox cheek - we used to give that to the dogs. Lots of stews and casseroles in winter where pearl barley ruled.

My mother was adventurous for her day, making spag bol in the 60s - I recall coming to London to buy things like garlic and fresh ravioli sheets.

What I miss greatly is the thrill of things coming into season: new potatoes, raspberries in June, strawberries in July, peaches in August, then cherries and plums. Peas, beans and marrows in summer, spring greens, early spinach and more root veg in the winter.