Why we should give thanks to the vol-au-vent
We turn up our noses at 1970s cuisine, but it made dinnertime what it is today, says Debora Robertson
It’s been a good news/bad news week for devotees of Seventies cuisine. On the one hand, The
Great Sport Relief Bake Off reminded us of how amazing vol-au-vents are, as Sam Cam stole the show with her flawlesss crab curry versions. On the other, Young’s Seafood announced that it is ceasing production of Findus Crispy Pancakes.
It’s easy to think of the Seventies as the land that gastronomy forgot. Sure, to our modern eyes there’s much contrived styling, piping of mash, suspending in aspic and garnishing with Day-Glo maraschino cherries. But perhaps today’s deliberately artless presentation, with its tangles of leaves ( © Nigella Lawson) and trickles of olive oil “to finish” ( © everyone else), is just as affected in its own way. What torturously perfect refinement was to the Seventies hostess (for it was almost always a she), apparently effortless, low-key casual is to the modern cook.
Flipping through a copy of the Seventies’ Cordon Bleu Cookery
Course magazine, I spy a feature titled “Ideas for the Career Girl Hostess”. It comprises a compellingly awful menu for tomato and orange soup (tinned tomato soup pixied up with frozen, concentrated orange juice), a do-ahead chicken chasseur, followed by a bought block of ice cream with some Tia Maria trickled over the top.
But how different is it really from today’s do-ahead dinner favourites of tomato salad, braised ox cheeks and affogato of bought ice cream with espresso poured over it?
Certainly, life may be too short to pipe chicken liver pâté on to a Ritz cracker. But no doubt future generations will be just as scathing about today’s chia-seed parfaits and joy-denying cauliflower-crust pizzas.
And it’s easy for us to smirk at stirring cooked veg through a tin of condensed mushroom soup, scattering on some crisps and grated cheese and calling it a gratin. Or to turn up our noses at potato waffles, Smash instant mash and, yes, crispy pancakes. But to many people, particularly working women, they seemed stress-reducingly modern and efficient.
There’s an optimism to even the most contrived Seventies food. Lots of people were entertaining at home for the first time, looking for inspiration and reassurance that they were doing it right. There was certainly much cooking to impress, with no surface left ungarnished, no olive left unstuffed.
As well as the vogue for elaborate recipes, there was another strand to Seventies food. The advent of cheap travel meant that people became excited about exploring new dishes, usually homey classics such as daubes and ragus. This sort of checked-tablecloth cuisine helped to usher in a new earthiness, typified by Jocasta Innes’s Pauper’s Cookbook, published in 1971. This offered thrifty treats such as homemade yogurt, barley kale soup (so ahead of her time), goulash and gazpacho. (Admittedly, we probably need to draw a veil – or possibly a shirt – over kidneys en chemise, aka kidneys baked inside a hollowedout bread roll.) So perhaps instead of turning up our noses at Seventies food, we should acknowledge and embrace the spirit of adventure and experimentation that, at its best, it represented. And if that means more vol-au-vents turning up on canapé trays, then surely that can only be a good thing?