Rice salad, saveloy casserole - reliving the gastronomic glory days of 1978

October 17, 2018

Seven Sharp’s Julian Lee and chef Richard Till investigate.

Rice salad, saveloy casserole, roast duck with canned apricot - just some of the dishes that were on Kiwis' menus 40 years ago.

Seven Sharp has just relived those gastronomic glory days.

In the second part of a series, the show asked, "What was food like in 1978?"

Reporter Julian Lee enlisted the help of legendary TV chef Richard Till to help answer that important question in the kitchen.

"My biggest memory of food in the '70s was that everything was better with a can of pineapple. My mother put canned pineapple into a lamb casserole once and I loved it. From then on I was at her to add pineapple to anything," Till said.

"Through the 1970s, from the end of the '60s to the early '80s, the consumption of canned fruit increased 13 times," he pointed out. 

"This is when you started seeing things like this - rice salad... I wouldn't really enjoy eating this too much," he said.

The food he remembered loving in the 1970s he'd cooked from the International Rugby Cookbook. 

"I've cooked a saveloy casserole. Some of the highlights in the saveloy casserole - it has onions and a dash of ginger and flour and salt to taste, but it's the can of tomato soup that really got me," Till said, savouring a saveloy casserole.

For more of the trip down the memory lane of Kiwi cuisine, watch the video above.

SHARE ME

More Stories