Retro food. What does it mean to you ?

[The Old Foodie]

Yet, one thing that annoys me sometimes, or simply perplexes me at others, is the idea of the food trend.  The notion of "retro" food is tied to the fact that things go in and out of style.

Something else that puzzles me is how food becomes retro even when there is no evidence that it's slipped out of style and made a come-back.

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There have always been food fashions - well, not always, but for a few centuries.

I think that "retro" is completely in the heart and mind and tastebuds of the beholder, in the same way that one man's comfort food is another man's poison, or one ethnic group's staple is another's exciting venture into foreign food. What would we argue and debate, food-wise, if that wasn't the case?

Must go and see how the OED defines "retro".

[petite tête de chou]

How many people make vegetable terrines these days?

Eat kiwi fruit?

Make focaccia?

Whip up a chocolate mousse?

Use their copy of The Silver Palate Cookbook?*

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As a nation, the United States gets more of my respect these days for the range of so-called ethnic or foreign cuisines that people outside those traditions prepare, buy or eat.  It took a lot of blondes to make salsa more popular than ketchup, opinions of bottled vs. fresh product and the ambiguity of the word "salsa" aside.

Yet, one thing that annoys me sometimes, or simply perplexes me at others, is the idea of the food trend.  The notion of "retro" food is tied to the fact that things go in and out of style.

For example, bleudauvergne might pipe up and say that she's in the middle of layering leek greens over a mold and there's a pile of orange, red, yellow, white and green vegetables on the counter to go into the terrine.

A resident of Milan would be amused to see osso buco mentioned as a retro dish.  It's made all the time.

Same with focaccia, a relatively flat raised bread, dimpled and oil-slickened that appeared in pages of cooking magazines and on tables in Iowa back in the eighties through part of the nineties until somehow ciabatta became the new focaccia.  Focaccia is just a fact of life throughout much of Italy and, I dearly hope, always will be.

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Something else that puzzles me is how food becomes retro even when there is no evidence that it's slipped out of style and made a come-back.

Take macaroni and cheese.  That's a little easier to gauge because it's also comfort food, associated with youth by generations that don't cook as much as their grandmothers did, including celebs who hang out in fashionable LA restaurants that become famous for their Fabulous versions of crusty mac & cheese.

Then there's meatloaf.  Families never stop making it at home, but it's suddenly got the aura of sleek Art Deco chrome and Diner cache draped over it like so many strips of bacon.

Same with the Shepherd's Pie at this little place (that used to be?) close to Harvard Square.  The Brit side of my family makes it year round year after year.  Staple.

All three examples that I've given are comfort foods, but there might be other categories.

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Another matter has to do with health.  I remember a conversation back in the 80s when Anastashia declared, "Who eats bacon anymore?"  Two of us dressed her down, of course, but I do know that I bought far less back then than I do now when it is, for the most part, free of sodium nitrates. (No sneers, please.  I know what you are going to say.) So for me, bacon is retro.

*I haven't touched that book in years, yet it is a touchstone for the foods that were fashionable in its time (1980s).  I don't think it's as dated as Craig Claiborne's NYT cookbook where some of the recipes (vichyssoise, salmon mousse, casseroles recommended for dinner parties) do smell faintly of tarragon and mothballs, but I turn to that quite frequently for basic information, a few core recipes and general good sense.

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Too damn funny. Too true. "Tarragon and mothballs." Cripes. My sides hurts.

[SuzySushi]

I don't think it's as dated as Craig Claiborne's NYT cookbook where some of the recipes (vichyssoise, salmon mousse, casseroles recommended for dinner parties) do smell faintly of tarragon and mothballs...

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I have to go drag out the tarragon and make myself a pot of vichyssoise (I've always liked that soup -- real comfort food). Come to think of it, Craig Claiborne's recipe for vichyssoise doesn't call for tarragon. I just looked it up in my copy of the NYT cookbook, inherited from my deceased mother-in-law and held together with duct tape. It must have been well-loved in its day.

[Kouign Aman]

crepes anything. Remember The Magic Pan restaurant?

[Rebecca263]

To me, anything coated in aspic is retro, I remember being served pate in aspic at cocktail parties so many years ago, it's making me feel creaky to count! And also, salmon 'en papillote'. My mother made this, and I haven't seen it in years. Whole milk, I rarely buy it any longer.

Hollywood Bread is retro to me, but it's long gone, and so are Hydrox, the ORIGINAL chocolate sandwich cookie.

JiffyPop! Oh, my, I remember making that and reveling in the poufing of the foil! We bought some at a 7-11 a few years ago, just to show kiddle what it's like!

[H. du Bois]

... somehow ciabatta became the new focaccia. 

I love that quote so much, I had to see it again.

I agree with your points - it's strange seeing things come and go and rise and fall in popularity.

I'm feeling old, though, thinking of how quiches and crepes were such a huge deal, and making them was an emblem of our "foodiness," for want of a better word. Maybe if I live long enough, I'll see them come round again (not that the French ever stopped making them).

BTW, I still do use a recipe or two from the Silver Palate.

[SuzySushi]

crepes anything. Remember The Magic Pan restaurant?

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Crepes are so retro that they're new again. Several crepes cookbooks came out just last year, and there's at least one Japanese chain of restaurants that specializes in crepes.

Edited June 9, 2006 by SuzySushi (log)

[Anewman102]

Yes. I meant Wechsberg. My aplogies to him and to you.

[ludja]

Yes. I meant Wechsberg. My aplogies to him and to you.

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No apologies necessary, of course! I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on another writer.

Have you seen the Time Life Series Book on "Cooking from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire" from their World Cooking series? Wechsberg was the author of that volume and it is a very good book as well. He seems like he must have been an interesting person; I've also read a few other things he's written. For example, a history/biography of the Strauss family of Viennese waltz fame. I agree that his writing definately captures a different era.

[Anewman102]

He was an extraordinary author, even when he wasn't writing about food. A Czechoslovakian Jew born in 1910 or so, he had a life both fabulous and terrifying; his ability to cope and continue both living and enjoying life are a lesson to everyone about how a human being can go on, keep going on, and why some do and some don't.

However--he was a little clubby in his restaurant criticism, which wasn't all that critical. He wrote a long and somewhat effusive essay about Ferdinand Point, the legendary chef of La Pyramid, and it is clear that, if Wechsberg had not been referred by a friend, Point would have treated him very shabbily and maybe not honored his request for a reservation at all. Which begs the question, how can a restauranteur be good at his work if he denies access to his restaurant? Or is that what makes him good? It's an interesting point, but Wechsberg doesn't address it. Too busy eating Point's specialities du maison, which he only prepares for his very dearest friends...

Compare this essay to one written by Ludwig Bemelmans at roughly the same time about Point and La Pyramid. It was hard to fool Mr. Bemelmans, who loved good food as much as Wechsberg did, but knew a phony when he saw one.

[ludja]

Interesting, thank you for the additional comentary on Wechsberg, Anewman102. I'll look for material written by Bemelmans as well. It seems like this topic could be an interesting sub-thread of its own.

[mrsadm]

Over the past few years, I have both thrown and catered "historic" dinner parties. The 70's cocktail party was the most "retro" with servings of miniature hot dogs, onion dip, Chex mix, and my favorite, rumaki.

Others that come to mind include tuna casserole, turkey a la king, chicken cacciatore, rhubarb crisp, stuffed crown roast, and shrimp toasts...

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Hey, I still make those things! You mean I'm out of style???

[Susan in FL]

Over the past few years, I have both thrown and catered "historic" dinner parties. The 70's cocktail party was the most "retro" with servings of miniature hot dogs, onion dip, Chex mix, and my favorite, rumaki.

Others that come to mind include tuna casserole, turkey a la king, chicken cacciatore, rhubarb crisp, stuffed crown roast, and shrimp toasts...

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Hey, I still make those things! You mean I'm out of style???

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No, retro is IN style!

[The Old Foodie]

I finally checked the OED, and it says that "retro" is:

"Something that imitates or harks back to a former style; esp. a style or fashion (of dress, music, etc.) that is nostalgically retrospective"

So it seems that our back-to-childhood, comfort food choices were spot-on!

Any more "nostalgically retrospective" foods that warrant a mention?

[petite tête de chou]

My grandmother and mother would usually serve one pile of vegetables, one pile of starch and one pile of protein with a glass of milk for their suppers. Dessert and coffee afterwards. Their meals, like themselves, were intensely unpretentious, without-a-doubt economical and downright sensible, rarely fussy. So, I guess canned vegetables (some of which I still eat, straight from the can, sitting cross-legged in front of the tv watching Fantasy Island reruns), a pile o' mashed potatoes with salt/pepper and MARGARINE (remember, it was thought to be better for your families health), overdone steak with lots of steak sauce and cartons of cheap neapolitan ice-cream just *scream* retro to me.

And because I had a Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine snow-cones are retro, too. I LOVE snow-cones!!

[dockhl]

MARGARINE (remember, it was thought to be better for your families health),

Yeah, like .......LAST year!

[andiesenji]

I have never stopped cooking the "retro" foods that I have enjoyed over the years and some of my recipes go much further back than just my lifetime.

A couple of weeks ago, (prior to messing up my left knee) I made an Orange Chiffon Cake, using the recipe that was printed on the SoftaSilk Cake Flour box in 1948 - the first time I tasted it.

I have been making this cake, exactly the same way, from scratch, since I learned how to do it correctly in 1950. My grandmother had bought a Sunbeam Mixmaster in late 1949 and since the cook was wary of using that "new-fangled machine" my grandmother began doing a few things in the kitchen, such as baking this particular cake, and she let me "help."

I don't know why these cakes went out of fashion but I have always loved them.

The chiffon cake story.

I still make the black skillet cornbread the way I saw it done when I was a child and there are many others that have been life-long favorites.

Incidentally, I still have my grandmother's Mixmaster.

Edited June 12, 2006 by andiesenji (log)

[tryska]

tomato soup with the little swirl of cream in it.

wedge salads ( a wedge of iceberg with blue cheese dressing)

turkey tetrazzini.

[PCL]

A few nights ago, a friend made the following:

roast rump of beef, then dumped a can of chopped tomatoes and half a bottle of passatta into the pan, then cooked spaghetti in the 'sauce' direct before baking the lot, carving the meat, then serving the spag and sauce on the side.

Apparently it's an old family favourite... going back years.... hence retro... You get the Heinz spaghetti thing happening but it's homemade and it's all good... must try cooking the pasta in the sauce like that soon!!!

[Kikyo]

My mom always made a dish for dinner parties called "picadillo." It is essentially ground beef with spices, raisins and pimiento stuffed olives, tomato and onion, browned and simmered. She would keep it warm in a fondue pot.

It is not one of my fonder memories ... I really didn't like that dish. Ground beef and raisins?

My great grandmother's specialty was shrimp cocktail and it became such a staple that someone still makes it whenever we get together for holidays.

My dad's specialty was cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf with canned peaches on top. He thought it was so classy to put it on the lettuce. I have a real sensitivity to textures and "slimy" textures set off my gag reflex. One time my father and I had a three hour long stand-off over whether I was going to eat his cottage cheese or not. I won.

Foods I remember with fondness are mainly from stays at my grandmother's: fresh gingerbread, and Fig Newtons with a glass of Ovaltine, which was my bedtime snack as a kid. She clearly got that from her mother, who did the same thing when I stayed with her.

Some retro food that I can't believe I ate so much of: spray cheese. My mom loved this and so did I. I would eat it in gobs on Ritz crackers, which makes me feel nauseous now. Thank goodness I was a naturally skinny kid.

[Rebecca263]

My mom always made a dish for dinner parties called "picadillo." It is essentially ground beef with spices, raisins and pimiento stuffed olives, tomato and onion, browned and simmered. She would keep it warm in a fondue pot.

It is not one of my fonder memories ... I really didn't like that dish. Ground beef and raisins? 

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Picadillo is RETRO??? OhMyHolyVacaFrita, then so is half of the food I eat in Miami, by association! Well, Miami IS RETRO, isn't it?

[Kikyo]

Well, it's retro to me, because the only time I have ever seen it is when my mom made it in the early 70s. Also, the overall - um - brownness of it, and the fondue pot just reminds me of the 70s.

[tryska]

Foods I remember with fondness are mainly from stays at my grandmother's: fresh gingerbread, and Fig Newtons with a glass of Ovaltine, which was my bedtime snack as a kid. She clearly got that from her mother, who did the same thing when I stayed with her.

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how could i forget this - a warm cup of ovaltine and toast soldiers was breakfast in bed at my grandmothers house. She would wake me up to it every morning.

[SuzySushi]

Croquettes. In white sauce.

It's the middle of the night here, and I woke up dreaming about them. OMG, how could I have forgotten them? We had them about twice a month when I was a kid.

[The Old Foodie]

Toad-in-the-hole?

Tapioca pudding? (YUK!)

Smoke haddock poached in milk?