Humour: Amanda Blair has a ’70s hostess flashback

Amanda Blair repairs to the “good room” for an adventure with pineapple and glacé cherries, and relives the legendary allure of the ambrosia salad.

At last, the opportunity to relive my childhood, but only the best parts. When the invitation to the 1970s-themed soirée arrived, I gasped. First, at the featured image of The Bee Gees and the impossible tightness of their white trousers and, second, I gasped at the request, long forgotten on party invitations – ladies, bring a plate – party food, 1970s-style.

Memories came flooding back like a waterfall of Golden Circle Sunshine Punch. Mum, in “the good room”, circa 1975, resplendent in a polyester flared jumpsuit, placing a pineapple in the middle of the table which she’d stuffed with skewers holding squares of Coon cheese, cabanossi and mini cocktail onions. In the pineapple crown, she’d placed glacé cherries, so it really pulled table focus. The ’70s were a time of great change and experimentation politically, sexually and culinary. Dishes never seen before were whizzing around Lazy Susans as we pushed the boundaries, finding new ways to combine fruit, sausages and condensed milk.

Almost overnight, everything came in cans and we were desperate to get our oysters and mussels out of one and onto a Jatz.

Whole cookbooks were published devoted to the worship of canned pineapple and standard mince dishes took on a new life when jazzed up with a tin or two and delivered to the table renamed meat sauce tropicale. Who knew simple bacon and eggs would transform into eggs flamenco when 15 ounces of canned chopped pineapple was added to the plate?

According to the publishers, cooking became “an adventure” with pineapple, so, bored by the drudgery of domestic life, women added it to almost every meal, hoping to bring some excitement to their day. The ’70s were a time for parties and our family always seemed to be throwing one.

For years, I thought it was because of our thrilling company and the way my mother worked a melon baller, as there wasn’t a fruit she couldn’t ball into perfection with a flick of her wrist. The gloss has long left my lens and I realise we only had a house full of people because we were the only family we knew with a Clark Rubber above-ground pool and my dad had no limit on the Orlando Coolabah he dished out from the cask.

But we didn’t mind the rabble, as it gave us the opportunity to show off our new modern appliance – the burnt-orange Crock-Pot. Chicken noodle soup became the base ingredient for almost every main meal and you could tell what night of the week it was by the offering. Our rotating roster was chow mein, tuna mornay, mince something or other, sausage casserole, sweet ’n’ sour pork, cold meat collation

(with canned potato salad) and, of course, everybody’s favourite, apricot chicken.

So, when it comes to my party night invitation, I continue to be overwhelmed with the choices.

I want to take something along that really combines all that was great about the 1970s, but sadly Abigail isn’t available. What about canned salmon dip stuffed into a fish-shape mold, covered in sliced pickled cucumber scales and eyes fashioned from olives? Or an ambrosia salad, favoured by Barbara, my next door neighbour from ’72 to ’78.

She consistently blew the buffet away with the dish that confounds with its heady combination of pecan nuts, sour cream, sugar, marshmallows, cream, roasted coconut, canned pineapple and mandarins, all mixed together and served in a glass bowl? Or do I carry on the family tradition and bring my balls to the table? I don’t know, I’m totally confused. I think I’ll do what most women did in the 1970s and have a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down ...

Dishes never seen before were whizzing around Lazy Susans.