Jell-O salads, shrimp in pink sauce, and flaming desserts were common. The wartime era and decades that followed produced and popularised many interesting dishes, some of which are now only served with irony.
Delicious food
Crêpes Suzette is a fancy restaurant dessert served table-side by a pancake-tossing waiter. Or dinner party hosts looking to impress served the French import.
Crêpes Suzette
This pastry-encased hunk of beef seems to endure, or at least dip in and out of fashion, perhaps because it packs such rich flavour or because it's guaranteed to impress if done right. Wrapping the beef in a thin pancake prevents soggy pastry, as MasterChef viewers know.
Beef Wellington
This 1950s classic is the ultimate pantry recipe, as food waste awareness rises. Every ingredient is canned or packaged: tuna, peas, soup, noodles.
Tuna noodle casserole
This tall, pink cake was invented in California in the 1940s and became popular as more women entered the workforce during World War II. It "combines the best features of Angel and butter cakes," with extra fluffiness thanks to oil instead of butter.
Chiffon cake
Was it a dinner party without pink-sauced shellfish? Defrosted shrimp in Marie Rose sauce became a dinner party mainstay in the mid-1950s and lasted through the 1970s. Read about this classic here.
Shrimp cocktail
In the 1950s, spaghetti casserole became popular as a cheap way to use up leftover vegetables, meat, and sauces. Home cooks buried spaghetti in cheese and tomato sauce or soup, then baked it. We love comfort food.
Baked spaghetti
These fat meatballs became popular in the US during WWII. People looked for ways to stretch meat rations. These patties were made with beef and potato.
Meat and potato patties