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

FAQs

What was one of the most popular hors d'oeuvres to grace holiday parties of 1970? ›

The cheese ball is the ultimate '70s party appetizer — and this classic chive and green olive cheese ball is sure to be a hit. Just roll that bad boy into a ball and serve it with crackers, it's really that simple.

1970s Food and Wine

Starters: Prawn co*cktail was a quintessential starter, emblematic of the era's penchant for both simplicity and a touch of luxury. Other popular starters included melon balls and pâté. Main Courses: Traditional British dishes like roast beef, lamb casserole, and fish pie were common.

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 ...

1970: Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn is introduced. Agronomist Redenbacher has found a yellow corn that expands nearly twice as much as other brands. In five years, it will be the country's largest-selling brand. 1970: Hamburger Helper is introduced.

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.

1970s. The 1970s marked the start of a reduction in our intake of vegetables. The average person ate a pound of red meat each week, compared to just over half of that today. Fruit juice arrived in the shops but only one in ten people consumed it regularly.

Jell-O, rumaki, avocado pie, fondue, deviled eggs, and tequila sunrises took center stage of the culinary scene in the '60s and '70s. Although some of these items have faded away in popularity, others have endured the test of time and been updated to appeal to current-day tastes.

1973: Fondue

As Lovegren wrote in Fashionable Food, "Foreign, sophisticated, easy, and fun, fondue was served in a gleaming pot, which in its streamlined beauty bristling with long-handled dipping forks resembled nothing so much as the space-age satellites circling Earth's atmosphere."

Why was jello so popular in the 1970s? ›

Soldiers came back from the war with a newly acquired taste for their products, and women were integrating the workplace in droves. Cheap and quick to prepare, products offered by companies like Heinz, Jell-O and Hi-Liner were perfectly adapted to this new reality.

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.

From 1969 to 1971, this burger joint was all the rage

According to Eat This, Not That!, Burger Chef used to be the most popular fast food joint during the 1970s, second only to the behemoth that was McDonald's.