Retro dinner party menu

[Bobje]

What would you have?

Planning on doing a dinner party with my sister to celebrate the fact that we’re both early 70s vintage 😁

We want the lot - prawn cocktail with luminous pink marie rose sauce.

Vol au vents!

Black forest gateau! (Or sherry trifle? Blancmange! 😆)

What’s best for mains?

Accompanied by Mateus rose or Liebfraumilch (“beloved lady’s milk! 😱) or a lovely beaujolais?

Help us relive our youth MN!

I was a child in the 70,s so this might not be quite what you were looking for Op but there was always a jelly in the shape of a rabbit at birthday parties.

Midori to drink
Melon balls
You need AT LEAST 1 thing in aspic jelly!
Bananas and ham in hollondaise

Pate with toast
Prawn cocktail
Orange juice with a toothpick and glacé cherry for decoration
Chicken in a basket
Baked Alaska

Remembering my grandparent’s dinner parties. Avocado with prawns; peppered steak; crème brûlée.

There was also a scooped out orange, filled with sorbet, I seem to recall.

Apricot chicken made with a packet of French onion soup and a can of apricot nectar served with boiled rice.

Oh I forgot - also lemon meringue pie made out of a packet.

Same generation here, OP. I seem to remember my mum doing rack of lamb with a little paper chef's hat on each bone. Congratulations and have fun!

Prawn cocktail to start.

Vesta packet curry for main course.

Rice pudding with a spoonful of strawberry jam for afters. Or one of those steamed puddings out of a tin.

Maybe introduce some garlic bread to start as "the future".

Food in the 70s was awful. I am not sure it is good to go back there. It has taken most people 5 decades to forget.

Oh I forgot artic roll.

Melon boat
Vienetta
Tinned fruit and carnation

Tinned mandarin in (quick) orange jelly in sponge flan base.

Chicken in a basket was the height of sophistication when I was a teenager 🤣

Is that lamb Henry?

Coq au vin or steak Diane.

No, Lamb Henry is a Cumbrian speciality, a slow cooked half shoulder of lamb with a mint glaze.

Findus crispy pancakes
Beans and sausage from a tin
Curry with sultanas and apple in

My parents loved entertaining and did loads of big dinner parties in the 70s. Dishes I really remember: avocado filled with prawns in a garlic/lemon dressing; garlic bread (French stick partially cut into slices and filled with herby garlic butter); vol au vents with creamy mushroom filling; beef wellington; beef bourgignone; saltimboca; choux pastry anything - particularly profiteroles; a flan in a cake base with custard, fruit and some kind of gelatine topping; pineapple flambé

Starter: Half grapefruit with glacé cherry

Main: Scampi and chips with salad ((lettuce and tomato slice) garnish
Pud: Arctic roll topped with tinned fruit

I would do the retro things but delicious versions. Prawn cocktail-but with lovely big prawns, a home made sauce and good salad. Really good pork with pineapple, or well cooked steak with garlic mushrooms and excellent chips or jacket potato and then a seriously fabulous Black Forest gateau.

EDIT sorry didn't mean to quote the above poster

Vol au vents
Prawn cocktail
Cheese and pineapple hedgehogs
Salmon roulade
Scotch egg

Breaded chicken in a basket with chips
Duck a l'orange
Beef bourguignon
Coq au vin
Coronation Chicken
Steak Diane
Gammon steak with pineapple and a fried egg
Steak and kidney pudding
Fondue

Black Forest Gateau
Artic/Swiss Roll
Butterscotch pudding
Crepe Suzette (best if you flambe at the table)
Baked Alaska

Any vegetarians attending must be given either nut loaf or cheese on toast

It absolutely wasn’t awful. Cookery writers like Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson and Josceline Dimbleby made a huge impact.
Lots of the food suggestions have been the cliched things like Vesta packets and crispy pancakes but they were not all that people ate- I didn’t taste a Vesta meal until I went to Uni in 1978, and then only the once. As students we cooked the usual pasta and chillis but also lots of fresh fish, curries, tajine etc from scratch.
i still cook and enjoy these things- I definitely have not spent 50 years trying to forget them.

prawn cocktail
chicken chasseur
blackforest gateaux

Delia's famous Piedmont Peppers.

... actually they may have been later. Memory playing tricks on me!

Duck a l'orange is a classic. Available ready made if you prefer