A toast (or roast) to 80s dinner party food

The 80s are back. And us, being well, us, we could help but take a walk down nostalgia boulevard and remember all those times we ran straight to the bathroom after a dinner party.

Blame the food. We sure do. There was a certain kind of dinner party food that was acceptable in the 80s, but our palettes have grown up and so have we. It’s time for a good old fashioned roast. No, not the edible kind. Cue Cyndi Lauper to set the scene.

Bread bowl with french onion dip

Will have you burping up onion for the rest of the night (and most of tomorrow morning too).

Chocolate mousse

The dessert that always reminded us of something else if you catch my drift. (We can’t help it, we’re a toilet paper company.) Usually served at slightly the wrong temperature, with slightly the wrong consistency.

Deviled eggs

Appropriately named. Inappropriately force-fed to dinner guests.

Fondue

Cheese or chocolate? Doesn’t matter too much. Either way it’ll most likely end up down the front of your shirt. Hope you’re not wearing white.

Pasta salad

Not quite pasta, not quite salad, not quite hitting the spot.

Roulade

Savory or sweet, roulades were making the rounds at my mom’s dinner party circuit. Easy to spot the supermarket variety. Also the person claiming they’d made it themself.

Potato 

It was the decade of the potato. Baked potato, potato salad, potato skins. The only roast they deserve is directly from the oven. Potato in any form is perfection. 10/10 would serve at a dinner party or alone in the kitchen at 1am.

Meatloaf

Enough said.