Ideas for retro 80s buffet please

[zozzle]

It will be a cold buffet for 150 people for my birthday. Its 80s fancy dress with bar. I have a v. small budget and no kitchen facilities at venue so has to be cold buffet pre-prepared at home and no arctic roll unfortunately as no freezer!

Ideas to be low cost and easy to go on platters (no individual angel delights in shot glasses or anything).

I'm doing the coctail sticks thing (cheese, pineapple, pickled onion) in hedgehogs and quiche. Any other ideas welcomed.

Thanks

You could serve fruit juice in wine glasses and call it a starter?

Fruit Salad (the tinned kind)
Prawn cocktail/salad
Finger sandwiches (salmon -tinned- and cucumber, cheese and pickle etc)
Vol au vents (prawn, tuna mayo and cream cheese type fillings)
Scotch eggs
Pork pie
Cheese and pineapple on sticks (displayed as a hedgehog)
Cocktail sausages
Black forest Gateau

cheesy footballs. ringos . birds packet trifle .

OMG Quick Gel and ready made flan cases, forgotten about that culinary delight from my Mum's kitchen!
A lot of the things described here are more 60s/70s by the 80s we were more sophisticated; Wine Bars, cocktails etc, so I'd suggest canape sized things, sliced baguette or crackers with Philadelphia and a bit of smoked salmon, olives, taramasalata dip...

My family weren't very sophisticated then, as we were definitely eating this type of food in the 80s.
Mind you for my family, a meal in a Berni Inn was the height of sophistication.

peach concorde
Peach Schnapps
Fuzzy Navels (vodka, midori, organge juice)
melon balls
black russians (Tia Maria and coke I think)
Cider (was Diamond White in the 80's or early 90's?)
Snakebite ??????

Ginslinger must be v posh - I don't think I had hoummus until at least 1991.

Mushroom vol au vents
Prawn vol au vents (ugh)
Celery filled with cream cheese
Cocktail sausages on sticks stuck into half a melon
Sausage rolls
Egg sarnies / hazelet sarnies / banana sarnies
Black Forest gateau
Cadburys fingers

It probably depends on where you are from.
Hummous and taramasalta, and olives etc, not noted for being seen in County Durham in the 80's, and my parents were quite 'posh', when it came to food (All Marks and Sparks, and smoked salmon a snack food in our house)

Crispy Pancakes!

I never even heard of hummous until 1996!!!

mini pork pies
scotch eggs
chicken drumsticks (possibly southern fried chicken flavour)
carrot and celery sticks with 4 dips in a plastic tray from the supermarket
ritz crackers
ham and melon

various stuff on sticks...
cheese & pineapple
cheese & silverskin onions
hot dog sausages & silverskin onions

batchelors savory rice -served cold in a white pyrex dish with flowers on the side

pots of super mousses

Am with ginslinger as I was an adult in the 80's trying to impress my friends with Dinner Parties and Posh Food: starters like Italian cold meats and ciabbata/foccaccia breads, olives, hummus.

Lots and lots of fondues!

Creamy desserts, eg, get a packet of ginger biscuits. Whip lots of cream up. Spread cream between each biscuit, so you end up with a cream/biscuit 'snake', then slather remaining cream all over. Leave for a few hours. Biscuits go like cake. Delish. These were the days before low fat......

And cocktails, soooo many cocktails

Big square pizzas with sun dried tomatoes and mozarella, cut up into fingers.

Gateaux - layers of cake and cream.

Brandy snaps. Pavlovas.

Used to make a lovely non alcoholic punch which was cold earl grey tea, mixed fruit juices - think tropical juices - and chopped up fruits to match the juices. Add fresh mint if desired. V cheap and popular.

Used to make little rolled up sarnies sometimes, bit time consuming but look sweet. Cut crusts off sliced bread, spread with sift filling - Philly or similar - roll up like a mini swiss roll, and cut into mini slices. Looks pretty. Add garnish - v
important 80's touch!

soft ...sift?

Cold cheese and tomato pizza.
We had houmous and taramasalata with pitta bread fingers.
Mini eggs
Tuna and celery sandwiches

Maybe do a section with 80s crisps - fish and chips, chicken and chips, (if still exist) monster munches, skips etc
And a section with 80s sweets. We also loved those chocolate dipper things, but could work out expensive..... Though you could just get a dozen or so as part of the display!

Pink shrimp sweets
Cola cubes
Dip dab/double dip lollies (Good pun for the recession )
Soda stream
Micro chips

Pate and veg pate with French stick would be 80s and nice to eat! Could also put out a couple pots of tuna paste, beef paste and sandwich spread for the brave!

has to be strawberry angel delight with sprinkles on top!!! Or was that 70's :)

Not sure if Coronation chicken was 70s or 80s. Can't remember.

Vegetarian food was quite popular in the 80s - remember Sarah Brown having a series on tv.

Coronation chicken was 1953.

For an 80s buffet:

Chilli
Curry
Baked potatoes
Cheese board with continental cheeses
Pasta salad
Quiche
Mushrooms
Cold cuts with melon
Crudités and dips
Crisps and dips
Crusty breads
Cheesecake
Pavlova
Bottled beers
Wine spritzers, eg sangria
Cocktails

Most people are describing 70s food here.

Long Island Iced Tea cocktails and dry roasted peanuts were the height of sophistication in teh mid 80s. Well they were to a girl brought up on pineapple and cheese hedgehogs in the 70s!

As others have said, most of the foods listed in this thread are from way before the 80s. Black jacks and fruit salads were around in the 60s. they used to be four for a 1d, so definitely pre-decimalisation. Cheese and pineapple on sticks, sponge flans, bridge rolls, scotch eggs, pink wafers were all being eaten in the 60s.

I can remember my best friend getting drunk as a very young teenager and blaming the resulting throwing up on too many vol au vents. That would have been about 1975 and they had been fashionable for years then.

1980s was Nouvelle Cuisine, cheese and meat fondues, the start of people cooking proper curries at home, and huge growth in fast food as far as I can remember.

yes, this is all a bit 60s/70s, the 80s were a bit 'smarter' - you must have some dessert thing that involves sliced kiwi fruit.