Food Ideas: 70s Disco Murder Mystery

1   1970s Party Food  

Throughout, we have chosen recipes that you can largely make in advance of your party. We find it is best to choose a cold starter and dessert and a main course that lends itself to reheating.

1.1 Give Ordinary Food a Groovy Feel

To add an extra groovy feel to even simple food, consider adding a few disco decorations: disco lighting, disco-themed tablecloth or disco dancer cocktail sticks.

Alternatively, rename food with nods towards 70s slang or culture:

• Cheese balls = disco balls
• Devilled eggs = Dig It Devils
• Hip Hot Dogs
• Peace Potatoes
• Boogie Bites
• Jive Turkey Sarnies
• Peace, Love and Pasta
• Funky Fries
• Far Out fish
• Groovy Guacamole
• Outta Sight Olives
• Slammin' Sausages

Or use character names from the murder mystery.

• Don the Dude's Egg Sarnies
• Bella's Black Forest Gateau

1.2 Use Decorations to Add a 70s Vibe

Add a disco vibe to buffet food with a few simple decorations:

1.3 Starters

Cheese balls  - serve with crackers, bread or even cheese straws. A salad garnish is optional. Alternatively, add grapes or whole nuts for a contrast of texture. For an extra visual statement, roll different cheese balls in different toppings so that the platter looks impressive. Choose from fresh herbs (such as rosemary, dill or chives), smoked paprika, sesame or poppy seeds, finely chopped nuts (think pecans, walnuts, almonds or pistachios) or cooked and finely crumbled bacon.

Shrimp or prawn cocktail - serve with crusty bread or crackers. As with everything, presentation is key. We found that serving guests a prawn cocktail in individual brandy snifter glasses with a prawn, cucumber wedge and lemon slice neatly hooked over the rim added a touch of easy class. We were able to assemble and refrigerate all glasses ahead of the party and also slice the bread shortly before guests arrived and then cover it to maintain freshness. We also cut further lemons into wedges and refrigerated them. Just before serving, we arranged the glasses, bread slices and lemons on plates.  

Cheese and pineapple on sticks - for a real 70s feel, serve in a "hedgehog" shape by sticking the cocktail sticks into an orange covered in silver foil. Add variety by replacing the pineapple on some sticks with Silverskin onions, grapes or mini tomatoes. Alternatively, add mini cocktail sausages to some sticks.

Mini pineapple meatballs.

Devilled eggs or egg mayonnaise.

Salads such as jelly salad, seven-layer salad, sweet macaroni salad, potato salad or salad with a "Green Goddess" dressing.

Bacon-wrapped spam bites.

Cheese fondue - while this brings back many 70s memories, this is not a good idea for a normal murder mystery party as it cannot be made in advance. (The exception for this is for those hosts who choose to eat first and then play the murder mystery afterward or for hosts who choose to play the murder mystery as a leisurely game over a weekend; this then becomes an ideal starter.)

1.4 Main Course

Choose something that you can make in advance and then reheat on the night while you play the first 4 rounds. Examples are Boeuf Bourguignon, Boeuf Stroganoff,  Spaghetti Bolognese, Lasagna, Hawaiian Meatballs, Pasta Primavera, Pineapple Chicken and Chicken Kyiv, stuffed vegetables and meat stuffed with other meat.

Serve with vegetables that can be heated through in the oven while you are playing one of the rounds - for example, pre-prepared roast vegetables or dishes of pre-mashed potatoes or other mashed root vegetables. Alternatively, use quick-cook vegetables such as peas or thinly sliced carrots.

Note that other 70s favorites could be served if you are eating before the murder mystery game. However, these may delay the evening if you try to serve them between the rounds. Examples are cheese fondue (serve with bread, meat or veggies), sausage, chicken or scampi in a basket and chicken and chips in a basket.

1.5 Desserts

Choose a 70s dessert that can be made in advance:  Black Forest Gateau, Watergate salad, brandy snaps, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, Tiramisu, zucchini bread, rum baba, profiteroles, chocolate hedgehog cake, Arctic Roll. Or make cake "pops" cut in the shape of a ball, covered in chocolate or frosting and then sprinkled with edible glitter or colored sprinkles and placed on a cocktail stick.

Or choose a dessert that can be put together very quickly such as a banana split.

Or else provide one of those desserts that have been popular in many decades and serve it on a record instead of a table mat. (We used a sherry trifle.)

1.6 Drinks

General: Party Seven beer, fruit punch, Advocat, Babycham, Martini, Cinzano, Noilly Pratt

Wines: think German (Lambrusco, Blue Nun) or Portuguese (Mateus Rosé), French (Chablis)

Cocktails: Brandy Alexander, Harvey Wallbanger, Grasshopper, Tequila Sunrise, The Pink Lady or Pina Colada

Pimms: this wonderfully refreshing drink has been around since 1823 but Wimbledon opened its first Pimms bar in 1971

2 A Few Suggested Sexy Seventies Recipes

Jelly salad - easy to make ahead and forms an eye-catching retro look when served in a mould. Great served with crusty bread. Possibilities include lime jelly with cucumber and horseradish; meat and cream jelly mould; shrimp jelly salad; fresh vegetable and gelatin salad.

Growing up, my mother used to make an amazing, refreshing lime and cucumber jelly dish that went down a treat at any buffet. Add this to your 70s buffet or serve as a starter alongside crusty bread, salad and pate. (We found that it doesn't quite make a starter in its own right but is a great addition to a separate starter.)

The recipe she's given me is:

• • 1 packet of lime jelly
  • 3/4 cup boiling water
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon onion juice
  • 1 cup of sour cream
  • 1 cup finely chopped cucumber

As we were living in America at the time, all quantities refer to American cups.

Method: dissolve the lime jelly in boiling water and add the lemon and onion juice. Chill until partially set. Then stir in the sour cream and cucumber and pour into a mould and chill until firm. Memories of making this over the years tell me that the secret is to ensure the jelly mixture is partially set before adding the sour cream and cucumber. This gives a far better texture.

Disclaimer: if using this recipe, please do test it before serving it to your guests.

Boeuf Bourguignon - make the night before; serve with mashed potatoes (pre-prepared and heated in the oven) and quick-cooking vegetables such as peas.

Tip: the first time we tried this, we ladled the Boeuf Bourguignon, peas and potatoes onto plates in a bit of a panic as we wanted to serve guests ASAP. The presentation did not do justice to the care that had gone into creating a tasty Boeuf Bourguignon. Since then, we have found it best to serve the potatoes and peas on a main plate and to add Boeuf Bourguignon in a small dish that then sits attractively on this main plate. 

Poke Cake - cakes with thick unset jelly poured into "poked" holes. Add whipped cream and fresh berries, possibly even a fruit coulis, to create a delicious 70s dessert.

Tip: growing up, I often used to make cakes with raspberry or strawberry jelly poured into holes poked with a fork. I used separate cake tins for the top and bottom layers. I found, however, that it was best to keep the bottom layer as a normal cake and then to pour the jelly into holes in the top layer only. To me, this created a cake with more contrast between the layers. I put the jellied cake in its cake tin into the fridge to set so that the cake would keep its shape. I then used jam, whipped cream and (optionally) fresh fruit as a filler and as a topping. The whole cake was then refrigerated until serving.

Disclaimer: please do test this before serving it to your guests. Decide for yourself how thick you wish the jelly mixture to be, how make poke holes you wish to have and whether or not you wish to have a layer of jelly on top of the cake.

 

3 Our Test Party Menu

We chose a cold starter that could be prepared ahead of time and kept in the fridge. We offered a choice of egg mayonnaise or pate with a salad garnish and crusty bread.

For mains, we opted for Boeuf Bourguignon, a main course that we could make in advance and then reheat as we were playing the rounds. We also had large trays of pre-cooked mashed potato that we reheated alongside the Boeuf Bourguignon. We then steamed quick-cook vegetables: petit pois and thinly sliced carrots.

Tip: we boiled the kettle as we cleared away the starters. When we came to serve the main course, we were able to speed up cooking the vegetables by reboiling the kettle and then using this boiling water in the saucepan. By the time our guests had sat down and we had placed the Boeuf Bourguignon, potatoes and plates on the table, the vegetables were cooked.

For dessert, we had a feast. We made a sherry trifle - one of those puddings that is popular in many decades. Our wonderful friend, Sharon, brought an Austrian Coffee Cake and some rum babas.

4 Other Hosts

For Rebecca's superb murder mystery party held around a campfire on a camping weekend, she said that "we had pizza, salad, and breadsticks delivered to the campground. It's not on theme, but my original menu was too complicated for camping."

Rebecca then created the 70s atmosphere with a themed tablecloth.