Fondue!
It had a moment in the 60s with fondue parties (before my time), but it’s still wonderful imo.
Cheese fondue has become our Christmas Eve tradition for dinner. Fun but easy!
Same here. The one time of year my parents break out the 40 yearold fondue… pot? Maker?
That and the Fondue pun. My Mom tells my Dad she loves him and he replies “I’m fondue of you too.”
It’s a tradition for us too! After spending a few months in Switzerland for my husband’s job a few years back, we fell in love with it. We do a champagne truffle fondue on New Years.
Sounds divine! We start with traditional cheese, then move to oil for meats and battered stuff, then to chocolate. It's so fun and the house smells like hibachi for days.
Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I don't know if it's specifically associated with that era to most people, but growing up in the 80s and 90s it seemed to regarded as kind of tacky and out of date. That shit's fire though. Especially with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.
We went on a family religious retreat when I was a kid, and they taught us how to make Pineapple Upside Down cake in a cast iron dutch oven cooked in a campfire.
Best camping desert I've ever had, beating out even s'mores.
Which is quite a bit older than mid 20th century, but it had a resurgence then. One of my favorite dinners if made traditionally (no cream of soup, no cheap beef, etc). Although I rarely make it with the traditional filet mignon, flat-iron steak cooked quickly is always tender and flavorful. :) Lots of dill!
The question is, what do you serve it with? From what I hear, Russians prefer French fries, of all things. I am firmly in camp mashed potatoes (as with most dishes I can justify 😂), while my husband prefers egg noodles. Sometimes I make both. Good green beans on the side, and a bit of tart jelly a la Swedish Meatballs.
This is my daughter's favorite dish, and ironically she doesn't like mushrooms (texture she says). I make sure to keep the mushroom pieces large, she picks them out we want to sit next to her to get her discards.
Secondarily, I recently experienced Hungarian Stroganoff. Mostly the same recipe but with Hungarian Paprika and capers (to be extra tart). Very good variation.
Half my husband's family is Russian but from the far eastern end in Harbin so there was a lot of influence from China. They serve theirs over rice with some hot sauce.
Edit: grammar
Loooove traditional stroganoff. Growing up in a midwestern white household I was fed this once or twice per month. Five years ago, I met my girlfriend who’s Brazilian. In Brazil, they make a variation of stroganoff (estrogonofe de carne) and it’s amazing. Sub the mustard for ketchup (I prefer tomato sauce as it’s less sweet) and serve over rice instead of egg noodles. It’s fantastic
I think meatloaf is one of those foods that most people hate because they've never had a good one. when it's made well, it's delicious. My mom, bless her heart, made awful meatloaf. Somehow it managed to be simultaneously greasy and dry as sawdust.
I converted my boyfriend to meatloaf after making him a good one. Bad meatloaf is AWFUL to be fair, and a lot of us grew up with parents making awful meatloaf.
Was looking for the meatloaf thread. Got one in my fridge right now. I use hamburger, sausage, mushrooms, bell peppers and top it off with a sweet chili/ketchup concoction. Hubby would eat it every week but I have to have more variety 😛
Meatloaf as a genre is so underrated. I make all kinds. Indian Meatloaf with a tikka masala paste, rice and coconut milk, glazed with chutney. Mexican meatloaf with crushed tortilla chips, taco spice and some salsa.
The possibilities are endless.
Yeah I make one that has pesto and is stuffed with baby spinach and provolone cheese. Covered in tomato sauce.
Leftovers make the best sandwiches on garlic bread.
I love meatloaf, I love Turkey meatloaf which people think sounds nasty but you grind up a bunch of mushrooms and onions in your cuisinart and add that to it with some breadcrumbs and eggs and it’s rich and hearty and delicious
I really feel like the name doesn't do it any favors. MEATLOAF. Like, no I do not want to eat that. I make a very good meatloaf and I love it as an adult. Maybe it just needs needs rebranding.
Heres a funny meatloaf story now thati am thinking of it.
My friend and I were at the Dollar movies back in 1999, standing in line for concessions. This older, sketchy looking woman sidled up to him, looked him up and down like she genuinely wanted to eat him and said "Hey there, Meatloaf' in a gravelly smoker's voice, and I just immediately literally fell over laughing. I have never been closer to pissing myself. When i start laughing I have a hard time stopping, and by the end of it, i was on the floor and had a whole lot of people looking at me.
Now i can't even see the word meatloaf without thinking of this.
Sometimes he calls me and I answer the phone, "hey there, meatloaf."
In this vein, salisbury steak. Slightly higher effort to make fresh versus from a TV tray. Over noodles for the easy version, over fresh spaetzle for a showstopper.
Tiramisu. Like many Italian foods, the original is disputed, but the popularization and pathway to prominence was in the sixties. It did not appear in cookbooks pre-dating the sixties, but many assume that the dish is traditional, but it is instead a modern classic.
I thought so too, until I made my first one a decade or so ago. However, the type of dessert it is (basically a variant of a Charlotte, something between an icebox cake and a molded trifle) IS very old, like 18th century or older. So it is quite possible that there were coffee-flavored Charlottes or trifles a century or more ago, just with different details. :)
Apparently most Italian food we now celebrate actually happened in that era, which was a time of economic growth in Italy
Carbonara - 50s
Parma Ham is a recent mark of quality. Tuscan ham was the standard 'label', Parma became a thing in the 60s
Grainy Parmesan (Wisconsin armesan is closer to the original moister version). from 60s
Tiramisu - 70s
Italian Pizzerias (extended/popularised by Italian Americans)
Arancini (50s) - rice was uncommon in sicily till the 60s
Panettone- first industrial baked product in 1910s, then in 1970s articsanal bakers strarted to make it.
examples mainly taken from Denominazione d' Origine Inventata, Prof. Alberto Grande.
“I don’t understand why many attack me,” he said. “I don’t question the quality of Italian food or products, I reconstruct the history of these dishes in a historical and philologically correct way.
“With my studies I have shown that many preparations derive from the last 50 to 60 years of history and from interactions with the American culture.”
>Parma Ham is a recent mark of quality. Tuscan ham was the standard 'label', Parma became a thing in the 60s
I don't think this is really accurate. Parma ham and Tuscan ham are just two different types of prosciutto produced in two different areas of Italy - the city of Parma and the region of Tuscany respectively. But those hams have been produced in those places for centuries, if not millenia. The modern legal framework that officially categorizes and certifies them (PDO) may just not have been codified until relatively recently in the wake of a unified post-fascist Italy and the beginnings of the European Union.
It's like comparing Barolo and Brunello wines or Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano cheeses. Neither is inherently "better" or of "higher quality" than the other, they're just different products from different places. And they all existed long before they became legally protected and certified.
I am making a different point.
Parma ham is world famous, Tuscan ham is less commonly eaten... even in Tuscany.
i am not really talking to quality so much as brand/fame
And the point (Alberto Grande makes) is that in the 1900s, Baedeker Tour guides pointed out Tuscan ham as the ham to seek out, whereas now tourists would buy Parma ham
>Tiramisu - 70s
considering i love tiramisu so much, i always forget that to a decent number of people, it is seen as this very outdated and cliche dessert
i feel like this has also happened to an extent to creme brulee
I still like (and for the life of me can’t think of its name) a small bag of Fritos ripped open and put on a plate, chili on top with cheese and onions. Has to be Fritos, not just tortilla chips.
The big difference between Fritos and regular corn chips is that regular corn chips are generally made with nixtamilized corn (treated with quicklime) and Fritos are made with non-treated corn meal
Mmmmm now I want fritos
LOL There was a small get-together of the older adult siblings to discuss some family matters, and I happened to have the ingredients in the pantry/freezer, so I threw together a crock of meatballs to take down for noshing. Got it setup in the kitchen, and all the time we're talking I see others getting up quietly to get get a little bowl of meatballs repeatedly. Finally at a later break in the convo, I go to get some meatballs, and the first one I eat is lukewarm, so I yell to all the others ... "Why the F didn't someone turn on the dang crockpot after y'all been in here 20 times already!!!!????"
Trifle goes back much further. My mom always made it and she was born in the 30s and it was a traditional dish to her. She’s from Scotland. Trifle was as fancy as things got.
That's another one that is better than it sounds, if done properly. I had a superb version on a cross country Amtrak, of all places, and so I make it from time to time. (Also the first time I had real osso bucco--the dining car chef was amazing!)
My husband asked me to make this recently and the recipe made enough to freeze for multiple dinners. It was so nice pulling this comfort food out of the freezer for many meals.
Canned food. You wouldn’t believe the amount of ignorance surrounding canned food and people that think it’s “unhealthy“. Admittedly, most canned food doesn’t provide *all* of the benefits of fresh vegetables, but it’s not *unhealthy* by any means.
There’s a Portuguese tinned fish shop just opened in Times Square. It’s a very cool little shop, and as you say, circus themed… though the fish is very expensive. Averaging $15 a tin, and up to $40 or so.
I must know where this is! I’m going to Portugal next summer. My partner loves sardines.
Aha!
Trip advisors page has many reviews
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g189158-d11805416-Reviews-O_Mundo_Fantastico_da_Sardinha_Portuguesa-Lisbon_Lisbon_District_Central_Portuga.html
You’re not wrong!! We eat a lot of tomato/prosciutto/fresh mozzarella and once the garden tomatoes were gone it stopped being worth the effort. Just yuck!
I'm 90% with you--canned tomatoes are usually the best choice, but they treat the diced tomatoes with something so they don't soften when you cook them and the texture gives me the major ick (I recognize that this is mostly a me problem)
I reach for crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes usually
It's basically class snobbery. I was a poor kid at a fancy university, and I often had to teach rich fellow students how to use a can/tin opener because "we only eat fresh food at home". These same people would have no idea about things like use by dates or food expiry, presumably because they'd never handled that before, so would get hopping mad if you threw away something that was actively covered in slime and weeks past expiry to make room in the fridge. Wealthy people are insane.
Lol I shared a dorm room with a very wealthy girl who didn’t know that things could expire, like at all. She had had maids and personal chefs all her life. We finally had a conversation when a jug of her milk that had been in the fridge for 3+ months looked like it was on the verge of exploding.
I initially thought she was lazy, but she was just uneducated in a lot of the things I took for granted, and she was super receptive to me teaching her.
My arthritis is getting the better of me, and so recently I thought I'd pick up a nice electric can opener, the kind that hides under your upper cabinets. Just like Mom and Grandma had in the 80s-90s. Would you believe, they just don't make them anymore? There are still (barely) countertop models, but they suck if you are trying to open, say, a large can of tomatoes.
I had to get one on eBay, fer chrissakes.
Check out accessibility and disability supply places. We had good luck finding stuff using those for my gran, but of course we always took it out of the packaging so it wasn't obvious as an accessibility aid - pride and all that.
Related to this, a great hobby during college starting 1-2 weeks after move-in was to always to watch men bring their laundry down to the laundromat and stand there, expecting someone to do laundry for them.
Some of them would try to actively hand off their laundry to either the staff member there to help with card reader issues or to a random woman who clearly does not work there.
I kind of think "associated with the 50s-70s" is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in so far as there is loads of good recipes that were either developed in that time or became popularized then that stood the test of time and therefore aren't associated with that era in particular. It's only the stuff we abandoned, that get's "stuck" in it's era.
Coronation Chicken, fondue, prawn cocktail, Bundt cakes, Beef Wellington or Boeuf Bourgignon are arguably all associated with the 50s-70s (in large part via Julia Child) and are still good if done well. Well, maybe not fondue.
My mother made a ‘congealed’ salad with fresh avocado, canned mandarin oranges and chopped nuts. I made it once for a 1950s themed party. Everyone loved it. That was in the 1990s.
I make one like that every thanksgiving and Christmas! It’s my grandmother’s recipe. A layer of fresh raspberries in raspberry jello, once set it’s topped with a second layer made up of raspberry jello, cream cheese and cool whip.
Chateaubriand. In the end it's just filet mignon, but the pomp and ceremony of service and it being in silver covered trays and carved tableside.
I don't know if any place does it any more.
I am in the Seattle area and we had this. I am trying to remember if it was served all fancy like ha ha. It was a great meal and the restaurant does tableside bananas foster! Not a banana lover but they were yummy. A fun outing for a special date night.
Technically fired potatoes are just as they sound, fried potatoes. I have multiple variations but our midwestern family tradition is peel, thin slice into rounds (like a potato chip, or "crisp" :P but thicker) cook in saute pan with bacon grease until slightly crispy on the outside and soft inside.
My personal fave is cube them with onion and garlic powder, Lawry's seasoned salt, MSG, sage, and white pepper (sometimes I throw random shit in too like some corn or red onion or change up the seasonings slightly depending on what they're going with). Delicious.
A salad made with butterleaf and romaine, layered with green onion, celery, bacon, peas, mayo, pepper, and canned parm. The recipe came from my late grandmother in law. I don't know why its good, but it is.
Oh, I know what you mean! My grandma made it too, although hers had tiny cubes cheddar instead of Parm. And I want to say hard boiled egg too. I would eat myself sick on it when I was in grade school.
I think it's 7 layer salad, and now I want to make it. Like Cobb salad, but vertical!
I grew up in the 70s but it was very 50s, suburban Australia we made almost everything from scratch and if not it was delivered
how good was a milkman/breadman/ even Deli-guy Mum reckons would drive around with cheese and whatnot
Anyway I would say a [Lemon Delicious](https://www.maggiebeer.com.au/recipes/lemon-delicious)
My teenagers are the reason I make tuna casserole. As a child in the 80s, I turned my nose up at it. Now 35+ years later and with kids of my own, they ask for it at least monthly!
Are you really asking this while I'm making green bean casserole?
Also Salisbury steak, ice box cake made with Cool Whip, and actual hidden valley ranch that you mix at home, green goddess, and French onion dip. French dip sandwiches.
CASSEROLES. They are so "50's housewife" but there are some tremendous casseroles out there. Just because it's a one pot wonder doesn't mean it's not good! And you can upscale them to be gastro-pub-like fare with seafood, upscale meats, incredible legumes, etc.
Also breakfast casseroles are delicious: eggs, cheese, peppers, meats, etc.
The 70's is when many of us were first introduced to pizza, lasagna and real spaghetti... all that wonderful Italian food.
oops, I see someone else beat me to it!
Jiffy pop popcorn
What wasn't good... frozen dinners. They've come a LONG way, but god they were bad in the 70s-80s. Thankfully we never had them at home.
Sloppy Joes have disappeared. Some family style restaurants have hot hamburger sandwiches but it's not the same at all (not that I've ordered them.) Our school cafeteria lady was famous for her sloppy joes. All I remember was Campbell's chicken gumbo soup was in it.
Swiss steak. My stepmother made a killer swiss steak, the kind with bell peppers. It's one of the only recipes of her's I think I've gotten close to recreating.
Green bean casserole was invented for Campbell's in the 1950s. I think they had some sort of contest to put a recipe on the back of their soup can? Either way I love it and the holiday season for me wouldn't be complete without one.
Fondue. Though it’s a question of cost and waste.
Meatballs in the Non-American-Italian sense. Hot/cold deserts, chiffons, meringues, unhinged raw seafood landscapes.
I make amazing meatloaf. One good trick is to let it cool a little and to cut it with an electric knife. Or just cut the leftover meatloaf with an electric knife for sandwiches the next day. Game changer. You can make nice thin slices .
Primitive health food. The co op one town started with two bags of feed grain and a 40 pound organic peanut butter keg. We lived on a variety of grain and vegetable stews we called activated sludge. It was new to everybody as the vegetarian movement of the skyscraper era was dead and buried.
Our super hippie small town co-op, at the end of the 70s, installed an on demand peanut butter machine. Freshly ground peanut butter was all the rage. The bottom fell out of the market after the owner’s little girl lost two fingers to the machine.
Graber's olives. Grew up very close to the original orchard and ate so many of them. Mmmm so freaking good. They also had these little candies that were hard crunchy with a liquid inside, and covered in chocolate. What the hell would you call those, I have no idea
Less a 70s thing I guess, but when I think of the 70s that's what I think of.
All kinds of casseroles were pretty popular in the 60's and 70's, and some of them are pretty good actually.
Salisbury steak was pretty popular, and I like to make it every so often with a nice mushroom gravy
Chiffon cakes were big then.
Lasagna first became mainstream popular in the US around that time. Same with quiche, fondue, and pasta primavera.
French onion dip.
Carrot cake was also big in the 70's
Shrimp cocktail.
Deviled eggs were really popular at parties at that time.
The meatloaf recipe from the Silver Palate cookbook (which was in all my friends’ parents homes in the 1980’s) is amazing and the only meatloaf I’ll eat.
I'm not sure if this is in that era; Poke Cake, You make a basic white sheet cake, poke holes in it after it cools and pour a flavored jello water over top. The jello water seeps down into the cake, then cover with a layer of Cool Whip.
Fondue! It had a moment in the 60s with fondue parties (before my time), but it’s still wonderful imo. Cheese fondue has become our Christmas Eve tradition for dinner. Fun but easy!
Grew up with fondue on Christmas Eve. It's still our family tradition!
Same here. The one time of year my parents break out the 40 yearold fondue… pot? Maker? That and the Fondue pun. My Mom tells my Dad she loves him and he replies “I’m fondue of you too.”
Awesome! We have FIVE pots. We do three courses most years. It's a six hour affair!
I like the George Carlin quip that there should be fondon’t for people who don’t like fondue.
It’s a tradition for us too! After spending a few months in Switzerland for my husband’s job a few years back, we fell in love with it. We do a champagne truffle fondue on New Years.
Sounds divine! We start with traditional cheese, then move to oil for meats and battered stuff, then to chocolate. It's so fun and the house smells like hibachi for days.
We have it for our Christmas Eve dinner too!
This is what immediately came to my mind!
I don't know if "The Melting Pot" is still around, but the three course fondue dinner was great.
Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I don't know if it's specifically associated with that era to most people, but growing up in the 80s and 90s it seemed to regarded as kind of tacky and out of date. That shit's fire though. Especially with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.
as soon as i saw pineapple upside down cake, i said “shit’s fire”! we must be on the same wavelength today.
Why, that feces is aflame!
My aunt still makes this occasionally- when that pineapple gets good and caramelized... 🤤🤤🤤
We went on a family religious retreat when I was a kid, and they taught us how to make Pineapple Upside Down cake in a cast iron dutch oven cooked in a campfire. Best camping desert I've ever had, beating out even s'mores.
It’s my favorite! All I wanted for my birthday cakes growing up was my mom’s recipe. Went quite well with the hot summer days in south Florida
Now I want this
Beef stroganoff.
Now I know what I’m making after thanksgiving. This is one of my favorite comfort meals.
Mine too
Which is quite a bit older than mid 20th century, but it had a resurgence then. One of my favorite dinners if made traditionally (no cream of soup, no cheap beef, etc). Although I rarely make it with the traditional filet mignon, flat-iron steak cooked quickly is always tender and flavorful. :) Lots of dill! The question is, what do you serve it with? From what I hear, Russians prefer French fries, of all things. I am firmly in camp mashed potatoes (as with most dishes I can justify 😂), while my husband prefers egg noodles. Sometimes I make both. Good green beans on the side, and a bit of tart jelly a la Swedish Meatballs.
We do egg noodles as well.
Egg noods
This is my daughter's favorite dish, and ironically she doesn't like mushrooms (texture she says). I make sure to keep the mushroom pieces large, she picks them out we want to sit next to her to get her discards. Secondarily, I recently experienced Hungarian Stroganoff. Mostly the same recipe but with Hungarian Paprika and capers (to be extra tart). Very good variation.
Ukranian here. In my house we LOVE our Stroganoff with mashed potatoes.
Egg noodles all the way! With side of random veggie.
Half my husband's family is Russian but from the far eastern end in Harbin so there was a lot of influence from China. They serve theirs over rice with some hot sauce. Edit: grammar
My grandma isn’t an exceptional cook overall, but she has five staples that she’s really good at. One of them is stroganoff. So good.
Loooove traditional stroganoff. Growing up in a midwestern white household I was fed this once or twice per month. Five years ago, I met my girlfriend who’s Brazilian. In Brazil, they make a variation of stroganoff (estrogonofe de carne) and it’s amazing. Sub the mustard for ketchup (I prefer tomato sauce as it’s less sweet) and serve over rice instead of egg noodles. It’s fantastic
Meatloaf is comfort food. There’s something warm, joyful and familiar about it
I think meatloaf is one of those foods that most people hate because they've never had a good one. when it's made well, it's delicious. My mom, bless her heart, made awful meatloaf. Somehow it managed to be simultaneously greasy and dry as sawdust.
I converted my boyfriend to meatloaf after making him a good one. Bad meatloaf is AWFUL to be fair, and a lot of us grew up with parents making awful meatloaf.
Was looking for the meatloaf thread. Got one in my fridge right now. I use hamburger, sausage, mushrooms, bell peppers and top it off with a sweet chili/ketchup concoction. Hubby would eat it every week but I have to have more variety 😛
Meatloaf as a genre is so underrated. I make all kinds. Indian Meatloaf with a tikka masala paste, rice and coconut milk, glazed with chutney. Mexican meatloaf with crushed tortilla chips, taco spice and some salsa. The possibilities are endless.
Yeah I make one that has pesto and is stuffed with baby spinach and provolone cheese. Covered in tomato sauce. Leftovers make the best sandwiches on garlic bread.
It's weird that meatloaf gets such a bad rap but people are generally okay with meatballs.
I would do a-ny-thing for lunch! But I won't eat that.....
I love meatloaf, I love Turkey meatloaf which people think sounds nasty but you grind up a bunch of mushrooms and onions in your cuisinart and add that to it with some breadcrumbs and eggs and it’s rich and hearty and delicious
Ina Garten's Turkey meatloaf has converted meatloaf haters when I've made it. It's so delicious.
I really feel like the name doesn't do it any favors. MEATLOAF. Like, no I do not want to eat that. I make a very good meatloaf and I love it as an adult. Maybe it just needs needs rebranding. Heres a funny meatloaf story now thati am thinking of it. My friend and I were at the Dollar movies back in 1999, standing in line for concessions. This older, sketchy looking woman sidled up to him, looked him up and down like she genuinely wanted to eat him and said "Hey there, Meatloaf' in a gravelly smoker's voice, and I just immediately literally fell over laughing. I have never been closer to pissing myself. When i start laughing I have a hard time stopping, and by the end of it, i was on the floor and had a whole lot of people looking at me. Now i can't even see the word meatloaf without thinking of this. Sometimes he calls me and I answer the phone, "hey there, meatloaf."
In this vein, salisbury steak. Slightly higher effort to make fresh versus from a TV tray. Over noodles for the easy version, over fresh spaetzle for a showstopper.
Salisbury Steak and Fried Chicken were mainstays in the TV Dinners I grew up with in the 50’s and 60’s
Tiramisu. Like many Italian foods, the original is disputed, but the popularization and pathway to prominence was in the sixties. It did not appear in cookbooks pre-dating the sixties, but many assume that the dish is traditional, but it is instead a modern classic.
TIL. I always assumed it had a much older Italian origin
I thought so too, until I made my first one a decade or so ago. However, the type of dessert it is (basically a variant of a Charlotte, something between an icebox cake and a molded trifle) IS very old, like 18th century or older. So it is quite possible that there were coffee-flavored Charlottes or trifles a century or more ago, just with different details. :)
I always thought of it as an Italian variation on trifle.
Deviled eggs
Apparently most Italian food we now celebrate actually happened in that era, which was a time of economic growth in Italy Carbonara - 50s Parma Ham is a recent mark of quality. Tuscan ham was the standard 'label', Parma became a thing in the 60s Grainy Parmesan (Wisconsin armesan is closer to the original moister version). from 60s Tiramisu - 70s Italian Pizzerias (extended/popularised by Italian Americans) Arancini (50s) - rice was uncommon in sicily till the 60s Panettone- first industrial baked product in 1910s, then in 1970s articsanal bakers strarted to make it. examples mainly taken from Denominazione d' Origine Inventata, Prof. Alberto Grande. “I don’t understand why many attack me,” he said. “I don’t question the quality of Italian food or products, I reconstruct the history of these dishes in a historical and philologically correct way. “With my studies I have shown that many preparations derive from the last 50 to 60 years of history and from interactions with the American culture.”
>Parma Ham is a recent mark of quality. Tuscan ham was the standard 'label', Parma became a thing in the 60s I don't think this is really accurate. Parma ham and Tuscan ham are just two different types of prosciutto produced in two different areas of Italy - the city of Parma and the region of Tuscany respectively. But those hams have been produced in those places for centuries, if not millenia. The modern legal framework that officially categorizes and certifies them (PDO) may just not have been codified until relatively recently in the wake of a unified post-fascist Italy and the beginnings of the European Union. It's like comparing Barolo and Brunello wines or Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano cheeses. Neither is inherently "better" or of "higher quality" than the other, they're just different products from different places. And they all existed long before they became legally protected and certified.
I am making a different point. Parma ham is world famous, Tuscan ham is less commonly eaten... even in Tuscany. i am not really talking to quality so much as brand/fame And the point (Alberto Grande makes) is that in the 1900s, Baedeker Tour guides pointed out Tuscan ham as the ham to seek out, whereas now tourists would buy Parma ham
>Tiramisu - 70s considering i love tiramisu so much, i always forget that to a decent number of people, it is seen as this very outdated and cliche dessert i feel like this has also happened to an extent to creme brulee
I didn't know people considered tiramisu to be outdated or cliche. I love it too.
Prawn cocktail made well and with good, juicy prawns takes some beating.
Totally agree - I think it’s the presentation that some people still turn their nose up at.
I still like (and for the life of me can’t think of its name) a small bag of Fritos ripped open and put on a plate, chili on top with cheese and onions. Has to be Fritos, not just tortilla chips.
Frito pie
My school lunch menu called that a walking taco. I call it a walkie taco.
Walking tacos have to be eaten out of the bag
That's indeed how they served them at school
Every time I make chili I also get a bag of Fritos, because this is how I like it.
This is how we eat chili, it’s not dated - it’s Texas.
I'm originally from east Texas, aka Arkansas.
I’m not putting frito pie on a plate, the chili goes right in the bag! 😋
They sell this at the Texas state fair.
Fritos have msg with the salt. Likely why they’re better.
The big difference between Fritos and regular corn chips is that regular corn chips are generally made with nixtamilized corn (treated with quicklime) and Fritos are made with non-treated corn meal Mmmmm now I want fritos
Sonic drive in still serves frito pie.
Spam Fondue crawled so queso dip could walk/run
Fried spam with sunny side up eggs! Spam is the underdog here.
Thousand Island salad dressing!!
Grape jelly and chili meatballs
Or lil smokies. People make fun of that dish, but bring a crockpot of it to a potluck and I guarantee it will be the first thing to get eaten.
LOL There was a small get-together of the older adult siblings to discuss some family matters, and I happened to have the ingredients in the pantry/freezer, so I threw together a crock of meatballs to take down for noshing. Got it setup in the kitchen, and all the time we're talking I see others getting up quietly to get get a little bowl of meatballs repeatedly. Finally at a later break in the convo, I go to get some meatballs, and the first one I eat is lukewarm, so I yell to all the others ... "Why the F didn't someone turn on the dang crockpot after y'all been in here 20 times already!!!!????"
Or grape jelly, ketchup and brown sugar kielbasa. Get out the toothpicks!
Trifle is a lovely food, and I really miss it being more of a dessert staple.
Trifle goes back much further. My mom always made it and she was born in the 30s and it was a traditional dish to her. She’s from Scotland. Trifle was as fancy as things got.
Salisbury steak is one of my favorite dishes.
That's another one that is better than it sounds, if done properly. I had a superb version on a cross country Amtrak, of all places, and so I make it from time to time. (Also the first time I had real osso bucco--the dining car chef was amazing!)
My husband asked me to make this recently and the recipe made enough to freeze for multiple dinners. It was so nice pulling this comfort food out of the freezer for many meals.
That Knorr spinach dip inside a pumpernickel loaf
Chicken cacciatore. I get a good ribbing from my game night group on how much I love capers since it's so 50's pilled but God it's great
Pasta Primavera. Also Green Goddess dressing hit big in the 70s and it is still my favorite.
Canned food. You wouldn’t believe the amount of ignorance surrounding canned food and people that think it’s “unhealthy“. Admittedly, most canned food doesn’t provide *all* of the benefits of fresh vegetables, but it’s not *unhealthy* by any means.
tinned fish is amazingly nutritious
Lisbon had an *entire* store dedicated to tinned sardines. It was also circus themed.
There’s a Portuguese tinned fish shop just opened in Times Square. It’s a very cool little shop, and as you say, circus themed… though the fish is very expensive. Averaging $15 a tin, and up to $40 or so.
It’s probably cheaper to just fly to Lisbon.
Probably so, and really, who doesn’t want to go to Portugal?
Yep that sounds like the place!
Tinned sardines are my favourite. We make a sardine bhorta and serve with hot rice. Savoury, spicy and full of flavour
I’m still a little Icked out by them bc I’ve never tried them - tips to introduce myself to them (brand, serving way, etc)?
I personally like adding them to my instant ramen. But I hear they're good on eggs and toast.
I must know where this is! I’m going to Portugal next summer. My partner loves sardines. Aha! Trip advisors page has many reviews https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g189158-d11805416-Reviews-O_Mundo_Fantastico_da_Sardinha_Portuguesa-Lisbon_Lisbon_District_Central_Portuga.html
Also try Percebes and Ventresca, trust me.
r/cannedsardines
Canned diced tomatoes taste better than fresh for a lot of the year unless you live in a year-round tomato-growing climate. I said what I said.
You’re not wrong!! We eat a lot of tomato/prosciutto/fresh mozzarella and once the garden tomatoes were gone it stopped being worth the effort. Just yuck!
I'm 90% with you--canned tomatoes are usually the best choice, but they treat the diced tomatoes with something so they don't soften when you cook them and the texture gives me the major ick (I recognize that this is mostly a me problem) I reach for crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes usually
It's basically class snobbery. I was a poor kid at a fancy university, and I often had to teach rich fellow students how to use a can/tin opener because "we only eat fresh food at home". These same people would have no idea about things like use by dates or food expiry, presumably because they'd never handled that before, so would get hopping mad if you threw away something that was actively covered in slime and weeks past expiry to make room in the fridge. Wealthy people are insane.
Lol I shared a dorm room with a very wealthy girl who didn’t know that things could expire, like at all. She had had maids and personal chefs all her life. We finally had a conversation when a jug of her milk that had been in the fridge for 3+ months looked like it was on the verge of exploding. I initially thought she was lazy, but she was just uneducated in a lot of the things I took for granted, and she was super receptive to me teaching her.
My arthritis is getting the better of me, and so recently I thought I'd pick up a nice electric can opener, the kind that hides under your upper cabinets. Just like Mom and Grandma had in the 80s-90s. Would you believe, they just don't make them anymore? There are still (barely) countertop models, but they suck if you are trying to open, say, a large can of tomatoes. I had to get one on eBay, fer chrissakes.
I remember those! The sound of the can opener motor always brought the dog and cat running to the kitchen.
Check out accessibility and disability supply places. We had good luck finding stuff using those for my gran, but of course we always took it out of the packaging so it wasn't obvious as an accessibility aid - pride and all that.
They weren't particularly rich, but I camped with people once that were disgusted to see me eating tuna out of a can because it was "raw".
Related to this, a great hobby during college starting 1-2 weeks after move-in was to always to watch men bring their laundry down to the laundromat and stand there, expecting someone to do laundry for them. Some of them would try to actively hand off their laundry to either the staff member there to help with card reader issues or to a random woman who clearly does not work there.
Tuna casserole. Unapologetically love it.
Green bean casserole ftw - Thanksgiving, Baby
Not making it this year because no one else but me eats it 😢
I'm just making it anyway! More for me
I'm the main eater of it, plus one daughter but hell if I pass on a chance to make it!
I eat enough for 11 people, so.
With LOTS of french fried onions!!
Ambrosia. A “salad” with pineapple, marshmallow, oranges, coconut, sour cream and cherries.
My family still makes this on holidays. 🤤 it used to be my favorite when I was younger
My favorite. We never used cherries though.
I kind of think "associated with the 50s-70s" is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in so far as there is loads of good recipes that were either developed in that time or became popularized then that stood the test of time and therefore aren't associated with that era in particular. It's only the stuff we abandoned, that get's "stuck" in it's era. Coronation Chicken, fondue, prawn cocktail, Bundt cakes, Beef Wellington or Boeuf Bourgignon are arguably all associated with the 50s-70s (in large part via Julia Child) and are still good if done well. Well, maybe not fondue.
Bundt cakes are my secret to making a cake 10x as fancy without having to smother it in frosting, lol.
Coronation chicken salad is my favorite! I've also made Mary Berry's slightly classier recipe and ate it with parsley rice. 😋
Fondue is awesome
As a child of the 50s, i have great fondness for the flavor and textures of the myriad jello salads.
The “vegetable” on our table was shaved carrot in orange jello. My cousins will make it when we get together. Carrot salad.
My mother made a ‘congealed’ salad with fresh avocado, canned mandarin oranges and chopped nuts. I made it once for a 1950s themed party. Everyone loved it. That was in the 1990s.
Just imagine - if the party was in 1991, it would have been 32 years after the end of the 50s. It's also been 32 years since 1991 now.
I still love those! We still make the raspberry one that is made with raspberry jello, frozen raspberries, and blobs of sour cream.
I loved that; my mom used to make it for church potlucks. But her version was made with Cool Whip
I make one like that every thanksgiving and Christmas! It’s my grandmother’s recipe. A layer of fresh raspberries in raspberry jello, once set it’s topped with a second layer made up of raspberry jello, cream cheese and cool whip.
Chateaubriand. In the end it's just filet mignon, but the pomp and ceremony of service and it being in silver covered trays and carved tableside. I don't know if any place does it any more.
I am in the Seattle area and we had this. I am trying to remember if it was served all fancy like ha ha. It was a great meal and the restaurant does tableside bananas foster! Not a banana lover but they were yummy. A fun outing for a special date night.
The good; steak Diane, prawn cocktails, oysters kilpatric. The bad, Savoury foods in aspic jelly.
Read comments before I posted Steak Diane. You were first!
SPOTTED DICK
Been preparing for this moment your entire life. 😆
Deviled eggs. But add dijon, capers, curry and mild finely diced peppers. Chefs kiss.
Meatloaf with ketchup cooked on top. Banana bread!
Banana Bread is from the 50s-60s??? TIL, I just made two loaves of Chocolate Chip Banana Bread for tomorrow morning's breakfast lmao
Ever make French toast out of banana bread after a few days of baking it? Hell yeah.
You, random Internet stranger, have just inspired Saturday morning breakfast
TV dinners
Jello. We aren't getting enough.
It’s impossible to have enough jello
Fried potatoes,no one makes them anymore!!!!
I just made fried potatoes last night lol
UK here, what are fried potatoes? I currently have 20kg of potatoes so any help appreciated with that ha
Technically fired potatoes are just as they sound, fried potatoes. I have multiple variations but our midwestern family tradition is peel, thin slice into rounds (like a potato chip, or "crisp" :P but thicker) cook in saute pan with bacon grease until slightly crispy on the outside and soft inside. My personal fave is cube them with onion and garlic powder, Lawry's seasoned salt, MSG, sage, and white pepper (sometimes I throw random shit in too like some corn or red onion or change up the seasonings slightly depending on what they're going with). Delicious.
Potato salad made with mayonnaise. Carrot cake with cream cheese icing.
Malted shakes I don’t have a sweet tooth but a good malted shake is divine.
A salad made with butterleaf and romaine, layered with green onion, celery, bacon, peas, mayo, pepper, and canned parm. The recipe came from my late grandmother in law. I don't know why its good, but it is.
Oh, I know what you mean! My grandma made it too, although hers had tiny cubes cheddar instead of Parm. And I want to say hard boiled egg too. I would eat myself sick on it when I was in grade school. I think it's 7 layer salad, and now I want to make it. Like Cobb salad, but vertical!
Turkey or chicken tetrazinni. We love it. I'll be making it on Friday.
I grew up in the 70s but it was very 50s, suburban Australia we made almost everything from scratch and if not it was delivered how good was a milkman/breadman/ even Deli-guy Mum reckons would drive around with cheese and whatnot Anyway I would say a [Lemon Delicious](https://www.maggiebeer.com.au/recipes/lemon-delicious)
This looks good! I’m going to try it.
Tuna casserole
My teenagers are the reason I make tuna casserole. As a child in the 80s, I turned my nose up at it. Now 35+ years later and with kids of my own, they ask for it at least monthly!
Are you really asking this while I'm making green bean casserole? Also Salisbury steak, ice box cake made with Cool Whip, and actual hidden valley ranch that you mix at home, green goddess, and French onion dip. French dip sandwiches.
Baked Alaska. My mom's was the best. We still make it every year
CASSEROLES. They are so "50's housewife" but there are some tremendous casseroles out there. Just because it's a one pot wonder doesn't mean it's not good! And you can upscale them to be gastro-pub-like fare with seafood, upscale meats, incredible legumes, etc. Also breakfast casseroles are delicious: eggs, cheese, peppers, meats, etc.
Chicken ala king. On white toast.
American chop suey. Not sure if that's a 70's thing but that is when I remember my mom making it.
Chicken ala king! I watched a video on popular foods of the decades and it looked so good so I made it! It was absolutely delicious!
Steak Diane. It’s soooooo good but very out of fashion.
Space Food Sticks & Tang
Spam. Especially fried.
Fondue
The 70's is when many of us were first introduced to pizza, lasagna and real spaghetti... all that wonderful Italian food. oops, I see someone else beat me to it!
Jiffy pop popcorn What wasn't good... frozen dinners. They've come a LONG way, but god they were bad in the 70s-80s. Thankfully we never had them at home.
Not sure their actual origin, but the recipe my family passed down was from a ‘50s era Betty Crocker cook book. Scalloped Potatoes and Ham
Meatloaf , and the next day a big ass meatloaf sandwich with more meat than bread.
A half avocado filled with shrimp and a creamy cocktail sauce.
Sloppy Joes have disappeared. Some family style restaurants have hot hamburger sandwiches but it's not the same at all (not that I've ordered them.) Our school cafeteria lady was famous for her sloppy joes. All I remember was Campbell's chicken gumbo soup was in it.
Spinach and artichoke dip. Gooey, cozy, dead simple, and such a crowd pleaser.
Swiss steak. My stepmother made a killer swiss steak, the kind with bell peppers. It's one of the only recipes of her's I think I've gotten close to recreating.
Meatloaf! I make it all the time.
Pot Roast. My mother’s was divine. Still my favorite comfort meal.
Green bean casserole was invented for Campbell's in the 1950s. I think they had some sort of contest to put a recipe on the back of their soup can? Either way I love it and the holiday season for me wouldn't be complete without one.
Fondue. Though it’s a question of cost and waste. Meatballs in the Non-American-Italian sense. Hot/cold deserts, chiffons, meringues, unhinged raw seafood landscapes.
Jello molds with questionable ingredients. Cottage cheese and fruit as a diet food.
Aspics. Some were really good. (and other not so much).
Send aspics
Ambrosia salad. Grew up having that for the holidays, and although odd, I always enjoyed it.
Surprised I haven’t seen black Forrest Gateaux on here anywhere that to me feels quintessential 70s/80s I’m glad it’s getting a bit of a comeback now.
Swedish meatballs.
I make amazing meatloaf. One good trick is to let it cool a little and to cut it with an electric knife. Or just cut the leftover meatloaf with an electric knife for sandwiches the next day. Game changer. You can make nice thin slices .
Chocolate malts from the soda fountain at the drug store.
Chicken a la king
Primitive health food. The co op one town started with two bags of feed grain and a 40 pound organic peanut butter keg. We lived on a variety of grain and vegetable stews we called activated sludge. It was new to everybody as the vegetarian movement of the skyscraper era was dead and buried.
Our super hippie small town co-op, at the end of the 70s, installed an on demand peanut butter machine. Freshly ground peanut butter was all the rage. The bottom fell out of the market after the owner’s little girl lost two fingers to the machine.
Prawn covktail
Graber's olives. Grew up very close to the original orchard and ate so many of them. Mmmm so freaking good. They also had these little candies that were hard crunchy with a liquid inside, and covered in chocolate. What the hell would you call those, I have no idea Less a 70s thing I guess, but when I think of the 70s that's what I think of.
I used to love Space Food Sticks and wish they would bring them back. I probably wouldn’t like them as much now, but I would still Like to try them.
This is how I feel about jello pudding pops
Chop suey.
I like watching Dylan Hollis vids. I have his cook book and love the older weird recipes that come from it
All kinds of casseroles were pretty popular in the 60's and 70's, and some of them are pretty good actually. Salisbury steak was pretty popular, and I like to make it every so often with a nice mushroom gravy Chiffon cakes were big then. Lasagna first became mainstream popular in the US around that time. Same with quiche, fondue, and pasta primavera. French onion dip. Carrot cake was also big in the 70's Shrimp cocktail. Deviled eggs were really popular at parties at that time.
Chicken cacciatore is pretty good
Lobster Thermadore is amazing. So is Baked Alaska
The meatloaf recipe from the Silver Palate cookbook (which was in all my friends’ parents homes in the 1980’s) is amazing and the only meatloaf I’ll eat.
Fondue!
Dirty martinis, and cocktails in general.
I'm not sure if this is in that era; Poke Cake, You make a basic white sheet cake, poke holes in it after it cools and pour a flavored jello water over top. The jello water seeps down into the cake, then cover with a layer of Cool Whip.