When thoughts turn food in the 1970s – often referred to as the decade that taste forgot – there were two camps. There were those who were quite happy to exist on Findus Crispy Pancakes, Bird’s Eye Potato Waffles and Bird’s Angel Delight – and if you can hum the ad tune to at least one of those, you’re waffly versatile.
And then there were those for whom dinner meant an occasion to impress the neighbours with party platters (pickled onions, cubes of cheese and, if you were very keen to impress, triangles of tinned pineapple, speared on cocktail sticks). It was also the decade that gave us Quiche Lorraine, steak Diane and cheese fondu – as well as a plethora of recipes involving tinned soup.
In an interview for the Irish Times, Tanya Sweeney spoke to Anna Pallai whose Twitter account 70s Dinner Party (@70s_party), has 106,000 followers and counting. "And no wonder," Sweeney writes. "The feed is replete with hair-raising images of broccoli souffle rings, ham and banana with hollandaise delight and god-knows-what shaped as ladybirds."
What are your memories of 1970s food? The good, the bad, and the downright inedible? We would love to hear from you.
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A selection of responses may be published on irishtimes.com.
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