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Gourmet  Files

Going retro: Back to the sixties

Photo: S. Subramanium

Too much of a hassle to make at home these days?

Food and entertainment, probably like everything else, reflect the times. I remember a time when party fare — and hors d’oeuvres in particular — were pretty, time consuming and tedious to make. Each bite needed hours of prep, each c anapé was made individually and ornamented with swirls of some creamy thing piped into rosettes. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in India access to ingredients was very, very limited, so the ambitious hostess had to make do with white bread, flour, cream, butter and processed cheese. Cocktail snack menus in the 1960s and 70s were so limited that I think I can remember anything that was ever served.

The strange thing is that now there seem to be no cocktail parties — meaning you can’t just invite someone (or many someones) over for a drink and a nibble, unless you belong to the corps diplomatique and are hosting a reception. Dinner is mandatory, possibly because no one can reach a party at 7.30 or 8 p.m. and leave soon after 9. Guests arrive at any time after 10, so dinner must be served. Which makes one wonder why then the short eats are so long that they’re as big as meals themselves. Even if you abjure the mutton kakori kababs and lamb shawarmas, the paneer Manchurian and honey-chilli-potatoes, but have a couple of chicken tikkas, phyllo-wrapped olives-and-cheese and mini pizzas, is there room for more?

Back then in the 60s, there were about half a dozen things that people made. There were always fish fingers with tartare sauce. Light, crisply crumb-fried mouthfuls of some river fish with a home made mayonnaise spiked with onions and ketchup. Yes, ketchup. No gherkins, capers or fines herbes, because, as far as we were concerned, they hadn’t been invented. Then there were tiny shammi kababs, for which the mince had been made to order, cooked, shaped and fried at home, to be served with fresh mint chutney. Paneer and chicken, now the staple entertaining ingredient, were not even considered in those days. There might have been miniature samosas filled with green peas instead of the ordinary potato. And canapés of white bread. Laboriously the housewife would cut out each one with differently shaped cookie cutters: some bells, some stars, some hearts and some plain circles. I don’t know what was done with the trimmings – probably dried for crumbs to coat the fish fingers. Can you imagine the labour involved with this stage alone? And more dire stuff was to follow. A topping involving cream and mayonnaise would be spiced and mixed in a bowl. Then either the bread was spread with butter or this mixture, a slice of salami placed on it, and finally topped with a small shoot of fresh coriander. If the hostess needed more punishment it would be further embellished with a very small section of tomato, to look like a red flower on a green leafy stalk. Or the mixture was filled in a piping bag and then extruded prettily on the bread. I can go ballistic thinking of how the hostess managed the logistics: the canapés would dry if made earlier, they would curl up if refrigerated and rot if not, she needed to be perfumed and swathed in chiffon when guests arrived, not sitting in smelly pyjamas, elbow deep in creamy spread. I know there was help, but only very few people had the sort of help that could have been entrusted with decorating food, they were just left to fry samosas and kababs “hot-hot”.

Then there were Monaco biscuits. Each one was individually decorated with a tiny heap of grated processed cheese and then further topped with a drop of ketchup. My path-breaking mother used marmalade instead, but the principle remained the same. But the real cutting edge hospitality was the offer of vol au vents. All hostesses claimed to have baked them at home, but all also knew of the neighbourhood Sharma bakery, which sold empty ones which were then filled at home with — always — mushrooms in white sauce. What else did they serve? Devilled eggs; cubes of cheese, pickled onions and a cherry on toothpicks — olives came decades later — and salted cashews.

Then there was the fried bread. Each slice of factory-made white bread was cut into four and fried, then topped with sautéed mushrooms or scrambled egg. Topping with a drop of ketchup wasn’t compulsory. Or it was spread with a processed cheese mixture and then fried, so it was crisp and brown on one side and golden and puffy with cheese on the other, to be served with ketchup. And since the kadhai was on and the oil hot, more snacks were fried. Cheese balls, made of flour and cheese and obviously something else that aerated and inflated them so that could drink up oil as they fried — their lightness was deceptive. The more proficient hostesses baked cheese straws which could lie around on the peg tables and didn’t need to be served hot.

Now we tend to serve what’s easy and can be prepared en masse, not individually, at least at home, without the benefit of a caterer. We pick up half-cooked eats, reheat and serve, or prepare dips and spreads to accompany interesting bread or crackers. We might know all about tahini, salsa and blue cheese — even have it home delivered — but no one seems to have the time or inclination to painstakingly put together the pretty tidbits we remember.

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