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

FAQs

What was the food trend in the 1970s? ›

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.

1977: Buffalo Wings

Fried chicken wings coated in cayenne pepper hot sauce and dipped in blue cheese: Who doesn't love that buffalo stuff? The now ubiquitous bar snack was first invented in 1964 at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, though there are other disputing claims.

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 ...

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.

What did people eat for breakfast in 1970? ›

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

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.

1970s fast food may not have been as "sophisticated" as the restaurants we have today, but boy was it fun! From Fun Meals to fast Mexican to pizza, you could…

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.

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.

It's cheap, aesthetically pleasing (by the standards of the day), and relatively easy to prepare.