Party Like It's 1979

1979 – what a year! The year that Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, the Happy Meal was introduced and the first British nudist beach was given the go ahead in Brighton. More importantly, it was also the birth year of a good friend of mine.

A thirtieth birthday is a momentous occasion and demands celebration in a suitably debauched but, conversely, also reserved fashion. Everyone knows that after the ripe old age of 25 hangovers become a true force to be reckoned with. So it falls to the humble dinner party to bridge that gap between ‘bacchanalian Myspace house party’ and ‘in bed by ten with a mug of warm milk’.

The theme was simple: I would trawl the myriad of second hand book shops around Glasgow hunting out suitably old/old-fashioned books relating to the gastronomic arts and then prepare a sumptuous feast in honour of my friend celebrating the very best of ‘retro cooking’.

My first port of call was the Salvation Army on the Dumbarton Road, a huge shop that fulfills all of one’s used furniture and second hand, chipped crockery needs. They also do a nice line in assorted books so it was here that I picked up book number one, Vogue Body and Beauty Book. Not strictly a cookery book, granted, but it has an entire section devoted to nutrition and diets including the marvellous and ingenious ‘wine and cheese’ and ‘egg and hamburger’ crash diets.

My undertaking also saw me take in the various, musty delights of Oxfam, Voltaire and Rousseau, Caledonia Books and some smaller, but no less significant, charity shops. If it sold old books related to cookery it was fair game.

I had to wade through some serious tat (sorry, Anthony ‘Wibble’ Thompson and his Snickers pie has no place in my kitchen) but ended up with a choice few. As well as my Vogue book I also found; Cooking Through The Year by Audrey Ellis, Vegetable Cookery by Nika Hazelton, and La Belle France by Garith Windsor et al. I went home feeling decidedly peckish but with a head full of ideas and a suspected dust allergy. It was time to sort out my menu for the party.

So the Mateus, having been suitably chilled, was cracked open, seats were taken around the grand dining table, decoratively strewn with leaves and assorted autumnal adornments and the revelry began. Starters came courtesy of Vegetable Cookery: Curried Parsnip And Apple Soup. This fruity and seasonal little number managed the enviable feat of tasting worse than it actually sounds. With the colour, texture and possibly also taste of wallpaper paste the name alone caused looks of consternation from my fellow diners around the table. Napkins politely dabbed at mouths as spoons were left gingerly in barely-touched bowls of the foul broth. Fingers crossed that the mains would prove more of a hit.

Cooking Through The Year provided me with the inspiration for dish number two, the whimsically titled Beef Spice Boats. Admittedly I chose to serve this recipe based more on the name than anything else but I thought, if nothing else, it might at least provide a few chuckles from those guests already drunk enough to appreciate such base humour. The dish called for a stew of sorts made from pumpkin and onions cooked in dripping, orange juice and vinegar with a bouquet garni comprising cinnamon, cloves and ginger. All topped off with a massive, bloody slab of beef like some sort of obscene meat frigate sailing upon a savoury ocean of deliciousness. I adapted the recipe a tad so my steaks had their own individual sails made from parma ham hoisted high atop a cocktail stick cum mast. Top marks for presentation were unanimous however the taste test generally left everyone cold.

Roll on dessert and Crepes Flambees Grand Marnier lifted directly from La Belle France. Nothing puts the party into dinner party like a stack of flaming blue pancakes doused in liquor. It couldn’t fail really and at last everyone finished the dish put in front of them.

Despite being some sort of aesthetic bible to the lady in the know in the seventies, Vogue Body and Beauty Book certainly didn’t shy away from recommending the odd glass or twelve in the pursuit of perfection. So comes the digestif, Rosemary Bordeaux, a perfect way to soothe the stomach after the vigors of such a mammoth feast. Simply a fine Bordeaux infused with fresh rosemary. Although the book didn’t specifically state that it should be swigged straight from the bottle that was the way that things were going at the time.

To conclude, age old recipes may not always be that popular with our cynical twenty-first century palates but dinner parties based around recipes found in second hand books will never fail to provide entertainment and a warm, fuzzy sense of nostalgia in a special way that only food can provide.