Foods of the late 1970s

[Dessertsny]

Can people offer suggestions of foods (savory and sweet) that they remember from the late 1970s? Trying to construct a dinner menu of foods popular in 1977-1978. Thanks for the help.

[KaimukiMan]

the birth of ranch dressing

blueberry cream cheese pie (which i think was kraft packaged "cheesecake" with a can of blueberry filling on top and then baked

lemon bars

[MakingSense]

Jimmy Carter was inaugurated in 1977. Southern food became popular after lots of campaign buttons and bumper stickers had been used with the motto: Grits and Fritz, the Fritz referring to the nickname of his running mate Walter (Fritz) Mondale. Most of the US had never had grits and they became a popular menu item. Things like Cheese Grits and Grits Soufflés.
Carter owned a peanut warehouse in Plains, GA, and peanuts also became a big deal. Lots of buttons and campaign items portrayed a big grinning peanut.
Barbecue was very popular as a menu item at catered meals in Washington, DC, and around the country and Southern food in general saw a rise in popularity. During the LBJ years, there had been Texas food but not so much the foods of the SE US. Many of Carter's staff were from Georgia and other Southern States, and they brought down-home cooking with them to the Nation's Capitol, setting a tone for lots of restaurants on the East Coast.

[danhole]

I remember making Oven Baked "fried" chicken, in the late seventies. You crunched up potato chips (ruffles preferred because of texture) added some seasonings, like a seasoned salt, coated the pieces and baked in the oven. Can't really think of anything else that wasn't a throwback from the sixties, like chicken rice casserole, chili mac, king ranch casserole. Now I did make these turnovers back then that I got the recipe off of a pillsbury biscuit tube, that were filled with a ground beef mix. Those were tasty. And there was a lot of the bisquick "impossible pies" recipes going around.

[DonnaFL]

I remember having Kiwi fruit for the first time in a dessert at Barbetta's in NYC probably around1976. Later (in the 80s?), the fruit could be found in any grocery store.

[crt]

'70's Party Foods'

http://www.robinsweb.com/70s/70s_party_foods.html

Google search hits for 'foods of the seventies'

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&am...

[lucyis]

Crepes, which are in again, were quite the posh menu items in the 70's. We made savory ones with crab meat and mushrooms, and sweet ones with jams or fresh fruit. There were even trendy gift crepe pans in the stores. I also remember the forerunner to "semi-homemade" with many dishes using the canned breads and cookie doughs from Pillsbury.
A very popular one used a roll of chocolate cookie dough and sweetened cream cheese. It was a kind of cheesecake cookie.
Another use of the canned dough was a take off on the Beef Wellington using a can of crescent rolls to make the crust. I admit I still could happily eat the pigs in blankets I discovered in the seventies using tiny cocktail Hebrew National franks and crescent roll dough "blankets" embedded with caraway seeds.

[coney with everything]

Now that I think about it, this was the era that Magic Pan had expanded--there was one at the mall I worked at. I think they all closed a few years later.

[meatn3]

Recall many parties serving quiche, mini cheesecakes (in a cupcake paper with a vanilla wafer as the crust), spinach salad with raw mushrooms. Raw (and fresh in general) mushrooms were a bit of a novelty- hadn't been widely available for very long. This was also a period when fondue was on an upswing. Vegetarian (at that point meant that eggs & dairy were ok) dishes were being explored more. Usually translated into eggplant parm or pseudo Mexican rice/bean casseroles. Both with lots of cheese. A lot of rather dull brown rice concoctions. Think I've managed to block the rest from memory...

[coney with everything]

Quiche is what popped to mind for me too. Also had a bit of a go at souffles as I recall. And spinach--wilted spinach salads, spinach in the aforementioned quiches and souffles

I had a VERY short lived part time job at Mountain Jacks around 1979-1980, and what I remember most from that was the novelty of the potato skin appetizer.

[MsMaryMc]

As a matter of fact...I have a seventies nostalgia wallow web page, and people kept writing to me and asking for ideas for a seventies theme party. I finally gathered a bunch of suggestions and links together and made a seventies party page. You should be able to find some ideas there!

http://www.casagordita.com/70sparty.htm

[rockandroller1]

The one thing I really remember were Morton's honey buns in the frozen food section. We had them occasionally as a weekend treat and they were always so great.

[goodhealthgourmet]

another hound was looking for 1950's food items recently and "mpalmer6c" provided this link...

http://www.foodtimeline.org/

it's a bit confusing to navigate, but there's some great information buried in those pages!

hope it helps.

[mpalmer6c]

Here's a much handier subsection, broken down by decades of the 20th century:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecad...