8O'S Themed dinner

[Buzzybb]

Any ideas please My Mother has asked me to cook an 80's themed dinner party for her and her friends, I have done 60's and 70's for them before but I am struggling here,
Angel delight, pot noodles and canned mushroom soup are not doing anything for me, I also need to have a cocktail and wine list. This is a big deal for them as they dress up and make a night of it please help.

Balloon how do you make death by choc 80's style is it a cake or ice cream ? They would love that, I usually do 3/4 starters, 2 mains, 3/4 desserts alcohol and coffees but all small taster portions

OOh yes chicken Kiev is a good'un.

It all needs to be served up on Eternal Beau crockery

Starter - deep fried camembert served with gooseberry/cranberry sauce.

Main - duck confit

Wasn't the 80s the time also of the british food revival? When spotted dick and berad and butter pudding came back? (or was that the 90s).

wukter I think the 80's is having a revival Pleas don't bring back the exercise gear though

What about blancmange (sp?)

Shell suits.....yes you will all have to dress up!

So desserts could be
Summer fruit pudding, cheesecake, Death by choc, sticky toffee pudding and vienetta.
Coffee with liqueur sweets?

lol at Eternal Beau

Cheese and pineapple sticks to go with the aperatifs..

Croquet (sp?) potatoes really take me back.. actually that could even be 70s(!)

Fondu?

French onion soup? (Still a huge favourite, but remember it in great volumes in the 80s)

Check out Delia's Cookery books from that era... she will have it to a tee.

What fun!

Notagranny they do dress up I have the pictures to prove it, I love that at the last party they fell out the door an one of them crawled to the car when collected I made a frozen cosmopolitan and it had hilarious results, I learned to much about stuff I never needed to know about. These women are all in their 60's by the way

You mum and her mates sound great fun.

I did the french onion soup in bread bowls, the same with the fondue for the other era's.
Will go to the library to check Delia

Yes they are living their live to the full with hilarious results, They have learned life is precious and we only have the now so each year I host a party for them to enjoy but it is so important that it goes right esp now two are ill and one may not have a good recovery.
Oh and one will have become a Grandma since they last met

Yes swallow and my local aldi has them must write a shopping list

Was pineapple upside down cake 70's or 80's?

at pineapple upside down cake.

Oh what a fab idea! I want to do one tonight

I would do:

Prawn cocktail in a martini glass (must be with iceberg lettuce as other sorts went briefly extinct from 1979-1990)

Homemade chicken kiev, ideally in a basket, with shoestring fries.

Profiterole tower.

Extremely bad instant coffee made with lots of fake percolating noises from the kitchen

The cocktails - dirty martinis, or something with a maraschino cherry.

Wine list - hmm, was blue nun 80s? Although I'm not sure I could bring myself to serve it even so. It does taste utterly boaking.

"mini sweetcorn and mange tout"

Oh my god yes!!! I can still remember my mum bringing those mini sweetcorn home from the supermarket and us all standing around being like "how? Why?"

Also teeny carrots scraped to within an inch of their lives.

it invokes memories of wet cherries.....

Melon boats or avocado and prawn starters?

or vol au vents!

Malibu and coke

We ate a lot of black forest gateaux and artic roll in the 80's - not sure if these are more 70's though.

I think there is a recipe for home made Vienetta in this months Good Food magazine (or could be Delicious).

For a drink, what about cheeky vimto (port and blue wkd)? I definitely drank a lot of vimto in the 80's.

GetOrfMoiLand it was 70's and James Martin does a lovely one that looks fab and tastes yummy and I make as it is fool proof
The young visitor I have served them Blu Nun and Black Tower before they liked it but yes it is probably still popular in the 80's so they will get that with soda stream I want to try Heston Bleumenthol's idea of soda streaming the blu Nun

I have no idea how to make Death by Chocolate, I just remember someone coming back from a lunch in the City back in the last 80s who said: "oooh we had this pudding called Death by Chocolate" and I thought it sounded like the coolest name for a pudding ever.

Disclaimer: was young and provincial and, er, it was the Eighties.

I must say that I always thought the Black Tower/Blue Nun wines were seventies, not eighties.

I do remember discovering Lambrusco in the eighties, but that might have just been me .

God I love Deep Fried Camembert < salivates >

So if I make Chicken Kiev for mains with ???? as the other choice [maybe beef wellington was that 80's?]
What kind of vol au vents coud I do? Mushroom with tinned soup ?[vomit]