Food from the Sixties?
I am going to a party and need to bring a dish from the Sixties (1963 specifically). As I'm only in my early thirties, I'm having trouble deciding what to make. I'd like it to be delicious as well as true to the theme. Here's what I've brainstormed with my mom so far:
Chex Mix
Stuffed mushrooms (? were those 60's-ish?)
A gherkin inside a cream-cheese slathered slice of salami then sliced and held together with a toothpick
Cherry tomatoes stuffed with tuna salad
Spinach dip
Any other ideas?
Thanks!
Fig Newton
Aug 23, 2007 12:02PM
Wow... this could be scary. But definitely check out the Gallery of Regrettable Food at:
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/
which has (annotated) recipes from period cookbooks. These might not qualify as "delicious" though.
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That's the first thing I thought of too! :)
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Please, please just bring the book for everyone to look at it -- and bring some good food to eat.
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The French Chef first aired in 1963. Maybe a Julia recipe from that series?
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I love 60s appetizers! They're so delightfully tacky and kitsch.
Some more ideas for you:
* Devils on horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon and then broiled until crisp)
* Rumaki (water chestnut and chicken liver wrapped in bacon, marinated in soy and then broiled until crisp)
* Cocktail weiners, either plain or wrapped in puff pastry (pigs in blankets)
* Pimento cheese spread with Ritz crackers
...and don't forget...
* JELLO SALAD!!
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Rumaki certainly were all the rage before the 60's....I remember them from the mid-late 50's because they were popularized by Trader Vick's Restaurants on their "Pu Pu Platter".
The 60's I remember would have every kind of food imaginable due to the "munchies" craze due to I dare not say what.
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I remember devils on horseback as oysters wrapped in bacon, but maybe thats because Im from arster country
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Oysters in bacon were always called "angels on horseback" in my house.
I assume this is because prunes are black and oysters are white (well, more like beige-ish)... so devils = black and angels = light.
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any of the above pinned to a whole pineapple with toothpicks - truly tacky and 60's
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Does that mean that you take a whole pineapple, stick the food (whatever it is) with a toothpick, and then stick it to the pineapple? Hilarious. I've never seen that so I'm trying to envision it.
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For another riff on the Jello Salad, you could always do an Ambrosia Salad (be sure to make it pink - did you see "Edward Scissorhands"?) !
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exactly..and yes, it is as bizzare as you are envisioning. sort of a fruity porcupine. i had forgotten them until one of my friends did one for a party a couple of years ago.
pimento olives on a piece of cheese on a piece of salami, cheese and cold cuts rolled up, rumaki, almost anything wrapped in bacon, stuffed cherry tomatoes (has to be a "thick" stuffing), cream cheese or peanut butter stuffed celery, fresh fruit chunks (of course including pineapple)... it can be quite colorful. Be sure to get a pineapple with a healthy looking crown.
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See if you can find a copy of James Beard's Fireside Cookbook - actually I think from the late '50s, but there was no sharp transition as far as cocktail-swilling grownups were concerned. He got his start as a caterer in New York, and was always the go-to guy for party snacks. He also did a book entirely on party food, Menus For Entertaining, that has pages and pages of hors d'oeuvres and canapes. We threw a party on the theme of Your Parents' Cocktail Party, based almost entirely on these two books - we even used an illustration from the Fireside book on the invitation!
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Brilliant! I do believe I've found the theme for my next dinner party. :)
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I remember my mom got a fondue pot in the sixties and that was all the rage! Also the grape jelly meatballs were one of her favorites for parties.
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The best (and easiest) hot buffet item using grape jelly is cocktail weenies in a chafing dish (fondue pot will do) in a 50-50 mixture of Heinz Chili Sauce and grape jelly, with a good supply of toothpicks alongside. Still a perennial favorite at old-money Nashville parties. You could of course buy a bag of the frozen meatballs and use those instead.
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I had this dish with vienna sausages dipped into a hideous concoction of grape jelly and yellow mustard. Faughhhhh!
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Oh, thank you SO much for putting that into my imagination! Do you suppose someone was just trying to remember the recipe and thought "mustard" instead of "ketchup"? Because you can in fact just use ketchup, although it's less interesting that way. Mustard, I dare say, would be excessively interesting.
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It was no mistake, it is an old Sunset recipe from the sixties. As written it is a jar of mustard and a jar of red current jelly over cocktail wieners. It actually tastes pretty good.
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Oh, goodie! I can recreate this!
Actually, it was the vienna sausages (the texture alone can transport me into a paroxysm of disgust) that put the dish over the top.
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similar--meatballs with sauce of cranberry sauce and chili sauce. Actually not terrible
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Now the meatballs sound pretty good. Sort of Swedish.
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<The best (and easiest) hot buffet item using grape jelly is cocktail weenies in a chafing dish (fondue pot will do) in a 50-50 mixture of Heinz Chili Sauce and grape jelly, >
My mom did that with meat balls. There were never any left!
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Cheese fondue was popular, but in the late 60's came the craze for meat dipped into a common pot and then served with dipping sauces. Also that was the first time I ever had Chinese "Hot Pot". (Huo Kuo?)
I ditto the Julia Child's suggestions. We cooked a LOT from her first book.
I also keep noticing that this 60's thread is leaving out a huge segment of the population - hippies and students. Their food was verrrry different from what's on this list.
Diet for a Small Planet was very popular in the late 60's. Also Alice B. Toklas cookbook
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1963 would be pre-hippie.
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That's right. But the late 50's and early 60's had the Beatniks, anyone remember?
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Don't recall that there was any special cuisine attached to the beatniks, other than jugs of Dago Red. They were probably going to those amazingly generous family-style Italian places in North Beach, and slurping up cheap noodles a little way down Grant Ave. in Chinatown.
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Don't forget, the Beatniks were among the first to popularize espresso!
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Yeah. Coffeehouses for hangouts, a lot of coffee, and a LOT of (non-food related) cigarettes.
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This reminded my of the movie with Cher in it! Mermaids!.....The mother only made party food. Everything was on a stick.
Hey, how about fondue!
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My mother used to take a slice of salami and put a slice of provolone on top (same size). Then she'd put on a plop of prepared tuna salad (no celery) in the middle, then lay an anchovy across it, roll it up and put a toothpick in the whole thing. Then she'd throw back a Grasshopper or a Pink Flamingo, throw on her Doris Day wig and call it a party.
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was quiche 60s or 70s? Fondue was but not easy to bring. Pinneapple and cheddar sticks. devilled eggs. dips.
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Quiche was 70s or even later.
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is the class green bean/mushroom casserole with the canned crispy onions on top from the 60s?
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No, the green bean casserole was invented by the Campbell Soup Company in 1955.
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It was created in 1955 but not served at dinner parties in the 60s a few years later?
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This brings up a good point that I was discussing with friends the other night. Just because a dish was in Gourmet magazine, say, in 1963, doesn't mean that it wasn't cooked for a long time after that.
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I thought you were looking for foods invented IN THE YEAR 1963, not BY THE YEAR 1963. Lots of edible things were invented by 1963. I know this for a fact. I was there.
I did some googling and found this site:
http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecad...
Maybe it will give you some ideas. I say take something really delicious and lie and say it was from 1963. (Also be sure to do a little visual aid on a cardboard easel to set next to your dish. A collage with food facts, etc.) Is there a prize for this endeavor? Good luck!
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I first encountered the green bean casserole in about 1960.
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Hash brownies were always popular among my set.
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Glad SOMEbody finally came out and said it!
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Swedish meatballs. Pigs in a blanket. Cheese cubes with toothpicks that have the multi-colored ruffled cellophane ends. Pimento cheese with Triscuits. Celery sticks with cream cheese.
Quiche is more 70s, and I think rumaki might be, too.
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HA! I misread it and thought it said hash BROWNS.
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Yay! Hash Brownies! ; )
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Sauce Pans and the Single Girl was published in 65. I still have my copy. It was reissued last year in paperback. You'll find plenty of good ideas in there.
An old favorite for us was sausage balls. Just take a couple pounds of bulk breakfast sausage and roll into bite size meatballs. In a kettle combine about a qt. of catsup with an equal amount of beer. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and drop in the meatballs simmer until the sauce is thickened.
Crabbies were popular then too. A hot crab salad with cheese on toasted english muffins and broild and then quartered.
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Cheez whiz?
has anyone said anything with cheez whiz yet?
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Beef bourginonne. Anything made with Campell's mushroom soup as the "sauce." Or am I also in the wrong decade?
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didn't the crabbies use Cheez Whiz?
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,161,1...
I just googled for a recipe and it is cheez whiz or Kraft Old English
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Sophisticates used the Kraft Old English.
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Olives with Bleu Cheese
Cheese Straws
Cheez whiz on celery boats
Deviled Eggs
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My Mom made olives that had a dough around them and then were browned and baked...
And we had oysters on the half shell too. Sometimes with a sauce, and sometimes just lemon and tobasco.
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1. Pitted olives forming a belt around some julienned carrots.
2. Celery sticks filled with peanut butter.
3. Eggplant casserole using Campbell's Cream of Mushroom with crumbled potato chip topping.
4. Chicken fried steak.
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Eggplant was around in the '60's???
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Hilarious!
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Swedish meatballs served in a 60's chafing dish
Lobster Newberg on toast points
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Yeah Sam, when did they invent eggplant? We used to get served a dish called Chicken Chip - it had some canned soup in it (of course) and also a potato chip topping. Yech.
One good appetizer from the sixties is shrimp stuffed with blue cheese. Slit cold boiled shrimp almost all the way through lengthwise. Fill with a mixture of blue cheese and cream cheese. Top the cream cheese with chopped parsley.
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I saw a recipe in a vintage cookbook of a mock pineapple- made of liverwurst, decorated with sliced olives, and topped with, I think, a real pineapple crown. The picture looked so awful I had to buy the cookbook. (I was at a yard sale.)
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Tamale pie is very 1950s and into the '60s.
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