14 Foods That Were Weirdly Popular in the ’70s
The 1970s were a wild time for American cuisine. This was an era when convenience was king, artificial colors were considered exciting, and home cooks were eager to experiment with exotic new ingredients and techniques.
What resulted was a decade of food trends that seem downright bizarre by today’s standards of farm-to-table and organic everything. Here is a list of 14 foods that enjoyed surprising popularity during the groovy decade of bell bottoms, disco, and fondue parties.
Fondue
Nothing says ’70s dinner party like a bubbling pot of cheese fondue. This Swiss tradition became an absolute must-have experience in American homes, with colorful fondue pots becoming wedding registry staples.
Guests would gather around to dip bread cubes, vegetables, and even fruit into communal pots of melted cheese or chocolate, creating a social eating experience that defined the decade’s entertainment style.
Jell-O Salads
Perhaps no food screams ’70s quite like a wobbly, multi-layered Jell-O salad. These colorful concoctions often combined sweet gelatin with decidedly non-sweet ingredients like vegetables, mayonnaise, and even tuna.
The most infamous varieties included ingredients suspended inside like olives, celery, and cottage cheese—creating edible centerpieces that were simultaneously admired and feared.
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TV Dinners
While TV dinners were invented earlier, they reached peak cultural status in the 1970s. These compartmentalized frozen meals perfectly captured the decade’s obsession with convenience and modern living.
Families would set up TV trays in the living room to enjoy these aluminum-packaged dinners while watching their favorite shows, marking a significant shift in American dining habits from formal table settings to casual eating.
Carob
Before dark chocolate became the health food darling it is today, carob was marketed as the healthy chocolate alternative in the ’70s. This pod from the carob tree was processed into a powder that resembled cocoa but with a distinctly different flavor profile.
Health-conscious parents often substituted carob for chocolate in cookies and cakes, much to the disappointment of their children who could definitely tell the difference.
Quiche
This French egg dish became unexpectedly trendy in American households during the ’70s. Considered sophisticated and continental, quiche appeared at countless brunches and dinner parties as hosts showed off their international culinary prowess.
The most popular version—Quiche Lorraine with bacon and Swiss cheese—became so ubiquitous that by the early ’80s, there was cultural pushback with the publication of the book ‘Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.’
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Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
This sticky-sweet dessert reached the height of its popularity in the ’70s, featuring rings of canned pineapple and bright red maraschino cherries arranged in a pattern atop a buttery cake. When inverted after baking, the caramelized fruit became a glistening top layer that epitomized the decade’s love affair with canned fruits and visually impressive desserts.
Nearly every community cookbook from the era featured at least one version of this recipe.
Beef Stroganoff
This Russian-inspired dish of beef, mushrooms, and sour cream sauce served over egg noodles became a dinner party standard in the ’70s. Amateur chefs across America embraced this seemingly exotic dish as their go-to impressive meal.
The popularization of shelf-stable dried beef stroganoff mix from companies like Hamburger Helper made this once-special dish accessible for everyday dinners.
Sweet and Sour Chicken
As Americans began exploring global cuisines in the ’70s, Chinese-American dishes like sweet and sour chicken became household favorites. This tangy, sticky, bright red dish bore little resemblance to authentic Chinese cuisine but perfectly matched the American palate of the time.
Served over white rice with canned pineapple chunks and green peppers, it represented many Americans’ first venture into ‘international’ cooking.
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Crepes
The humble French crepe had a major moment in 1970s America, with crepe pans becoming must-have kitchen tools. Restaurants dedicated entirely to crepes popped up in shopping malls across the country, offering both savory and sweet varieties.
Home cooks enthusiastically attempted these thin pancakes, often serving them rolled around various fillings as an elegant dinner party finale.
Watergate Salad
Named after the famous political scandal, this peculiar dessert combined pistachio pudding mix, crushed pineapple, miniature marshmallows, and whipped topping. The bright green concoction was a staple at potlucks and holiday gatherings throughout the decade.
Its strange combination of processed ingredients perfectly captured the era’s fascination with instant foods and unusual color combinations.
Chicken à la King
This creamy dish of diced chicken, mushrooms, and peppers in a rich sauce served over toast points or pastry shells was considered the height of elegance in the ’70s. Often made with leftover chicken, it was a practical yet impressive way to stretch ingredients while still seeming fancy.
The dish frequently appeared on restaurant menus and was a popular choice for ladies’ luncheons.
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Tunnel of Fudge Cake
Winner of the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off contest, this cake truly hit its stride in the 1970s. The magic of this bundt cake was its ability to form its own fudgy center during baking, creating a ‘tunnel’ of gooey chocolate goodness.
Home bakers across America were enchanted by this seemingly miraculous technique, making it a birthday and special occasion favorite throughout the decade.
Tang
This powdered orange drink became wildly popular after being associated with the space program in the late ’60s, but its presence in American households peaked in the ’70s. Parents embraced Tang as a convenient alternative to orange juice, despite its lack of nutritional value compared to the real thing.
The bright orange powder symbolized the decade’s embrace of food technology and artificial everything.
Hamburger Helper
Introduced in 1971, Hamburger Helper perfectly encapsulated the decade’s cooking priorities: convenience, stretching ingredients, and creating ‘homemade’ meals with minimal effort. The boxed mix containing pasta and seasonings only required the addition of ground beef and water to create a complete one-skillet meal.
For working mothers of the ’70s, products like this represented liberation from lengthy meal preparation.
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Food Fads and Modern Palates
Looking back at these ’70s food trends reveals much about how American tastes have evolved over the decades. What seemed sophisticated and modern then often appears questionable to contemporary diners focused on fresh ingredients and authentic flavors.
Yet there’s no denying that many of these foods hold strong nostalgic appeal for those who grew up with them. Some, like fondue and quiche, have even made comebacks in recent years—though typically with fresher ingredients and less processed components than their ’70s counterparts.
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