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 would go for:

Prawn cocktail with triangle slices of brown bread and a sprinkle of paprika

Beef stroganoff with rice and green beans

Pavlova

Asti for the aperitif then a Riesling (don’t think I could still do Liebfraumilch or Blue Nun!)

By the way, a trip to your local Iceland should yield plenty of options - I nipped in last week for milk for the first time in years and it's like a frozen time machine, row upon row of freezers all full of old fashioned food

Lidl has a really nice Riesling btw, very drinkable, the vino verde from majestic is good too but pricey. Lidl does sometimes have Mateus

Pop tarts

Starter Heinz tomato soup with bread and butter
Cheese and pineapple hedgehog

Mains
Beef casserole
Chicken casserole
Corned beef from a tin and potatoes with lots of butter
Curry with apple and sultanas with white boiled rice
Gammon, egg and chips
Pork chops, potatoes and carrots

Desserts
Vienetta
Blancmange shaped in a rabbit container
Rice pudding with a dollop of strawberry jam
Jam Roly poly and custard

I Goddamn love a vol u vent.

You need this cookery book OP 😀

I'm moderately sure pop tarts came later - some time in the 80s?

If you're feeling really brave and fancy a laugh, you could serve Aspic. Mmmmm, savoury jelly containing fish and peas. Yum yummy yum.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I think you might be right. I'd like to see a 1980's retro menu, but I'd probably need to start my own thread!

The BBC programme, Back in Time for Dinner was great for ideas and nostalgia about dinners past.

@Philandbill I still use a Hamlin cookery book, but mine is red.

@MinervaMcGonagallsCat spot on about Nutroast for vegetarians!

Found my people!

Prawn cocktail
Beef Wellington
Black Forest Gateaux and Baked Alaska.

My mum made the above for Dinner parties.

I loved cooking ‘posh’ dinners when I was young in the 70s. Many of the above were involved, also ‘Spanish Chicken’, pork chops in garlic and cream sauce, beef stroganoff. For pudding, arctic roll was the star of desserts, and has (rightfully) made a comeback recently!

btw Delia’s peppers were in her Summer Cookbook in 1993. They were bloody everywhere!

Thank you all so much, these are brilliant! I’ve had a good giggle at some of them!

There’s so many great ideas, I might do a posh one with the avocado prawn cocktails and steak main, with baked Alaska ,and then do another with findus crispy pancakes, vesta curries and an arctic roll 😆
We will end our evening with a Hamlet cigar 😂

@Riverlee I have a copy of the book pictured, my aunty bought it for me. 😂The flapjack recipe is good and the rest is 'interesting'.

florida cocktail
chicken chasseur
mousakka
navarin of lamb
coffee and mandarin gateau
crepe suzette
pineapple upside down cake
spotted dick & custard

I agree with chicken kiev, or beef/mushroom stroganoff, or one of those English style curries, sometimes had sultanas in. Findus crispy pancakes are horrible now, don't know whether my tastes have changed or (more likely) they've got much worse. We did used to have them deep fried, though, which might have helped.

God those desserts make me want to heave! Fruit in jelly was a big 70s thing. Coq au vin or better yet fondue! That's always fun. Look up Fanny Craddick...

A hedgehog (half a melon covered in foil) with cheese and pineapple or cheese and pickled onions on sticks

Also babycham, snowballs and cherry b

Go crazy. Chunks of cheese, pineapple and mini pickled onions on sticks. 👀

Vienetta
pronounced without the t’s

I'd like to see a 1980's retro menu, but I'd probably need to start my own thread!
I'd be happy to join that thread too. I have an interesting cookbook that is entirely microwave meals. From starters, roasts to desserts. 😆

Cheese fondue 🫕