The decade that taste forgot! Hideous 1970s recipes revealed (2024)

FAQs

What was the food trend in the 1970s? ›

People were all about finger food in the 1970s, and cheese balls were especially popular. Cheese balls were a common appetizer for the same reasons they're still beloved today: they're simple to make, super sharable, and please crowds no matter where they're served.

1970s Dishes

But there's more; prawn co*cktail served with salad cream and tomato ketchup for a dazzling party snack; sherry trifle, soggy jelly-fruit flan, cool-whip, spam, stroganoff, steak and chips, egg and chips, fondue and frozen wonders.

The cuisine that the counterculture took to in the late 1960s, and then helped introduce to the mainstream in the 1970s, embraced whole grains and legumes; organic, fresh vegetables; soy foods like tofu and tempeh; nutrition-boosters like wheat germ and sprouted grains; and flavors from Eastern European, Asian, and ...

Fondue. Hosting a fondue dinner party was popular in the 1970s, and fondue pots were the ultimate wedding gift during that decade. The Swiss dish consisting of melted cheese served in a communal pot was enjoyed by dipping chunks of bread into the cheese using long-stemmed forks.

The US couldn't get enough walnut and goat cheese salad in 1978. A variation of this salad style became a Chez Panisse classic — the founding restaurant of California cuisine and the farm-to-table movement, which opened its doors in 1971.

The 1970s was the decade of cool cereals, slimming snacks and show-off dinner parties. When Generation X were children, the Egg McMuffin came out, cheese fondue was fashionable, Watergate salad became a family favourite and Blue Nun was the drink of choice.

1970s: Chicken livers and Egg McMuffins

Coupled with the decade's passion for fondue, booze, muumuus, and all things funky and foreign, this resulted in some interesting food trends.

Why was Jello so popular in the 70s? ›

It's cheap, aesthetically pleasing (by the standards of the day), and relatively easy to prepare. This is when the still popular jellied salads began to appear.

People ate eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, cereal, milk, and juice. Breakfast bars and breakfast burritos weren't a thing then.

The first Wendy's opened in 1969 and dominated fast food into the 1970s. It was unique thanks to its square hamburger patties and the introduction of a salad bar in 1979. The famous Frosty was one of the original items on the menu in 1969, and is still one of Wendy's best-selling products today.

For a buffet you'd need devilled eggs, cheese and silver skin onion / pineapple hedgehog, twiglets, Black Forest gateaux for pud, mushroom and/or prawn vol-au-vents and if you're posh you need a poached salmon deforested with cucumber 'scales'.

As of April 1973, the lab had identified three likely sources for making plant-based, meatless protein: canola (then known in Canada as rapeseed), sunflower seeds, and soybeans. "It is quite possible now to produce meat substitutes which smell and taste exactly like meat," De Man added.

Consistent with dietary and health recommendations, Americans now consume a half more grain products and a fourth more fruits and veg- etables per capita than they did in 1970, eat leaner meat, and drink lower fat milk.

Popularly known as the “Basic Four,” the guide recommended a minimum number of foods from each of four food groups—milk, meat, fruits and vegetables, and grain prod- ucts (Page and Phipard, 1956). This food guide, with its focus on getting enough nutrients, was widely used for the next two decades.