Back in the 50’s, people began to open up to the new entertainment of the decade, Television, and Hi – Fidelity at cocktail party’s! It became a big thing to the upper class it seems.

In the 50’s TV and Hi-Fidelity electronics became affordable, although in the mid-1950’s people in the country had about nine million TV sets, but there was plenty of TV shows to watch while nipping on trays of cocktail recipes that were prepared before hand so guests could hand on while waiting for the main meal and the television program to begin.

In those days, there was a certain prestige to having guests over to watch TV, the after-theater supper was a long late night gathering. People would watch the latest TV Drama “Playhouse” then go on discussing the program, while snacking on an intellectual supper dish! Well I do remember a couple of those and the program, “Playhouse 90” was very well liked by many people at the time.

It was good entertainment at the time, my parents also watched them as I recall, but we never had an elegant snack while watching! More like Cheese on Ritz Crackers! was more like it and the kids had Kool-Aid with it! So it’s interesting to see how people went about entertaining back in the 1950’s, below are sample cocktail ingredients that were used at the time.

• Sliced Tomatoes with French Dressing
• Lobster Newburg en Chafing Dish
• Almond Tart
• Pate Masison
• Ice Pifaf
• Coffee

illustration Licensed by: (c) Can Stock Photo / Aleutie