It was. But that food looks more like the 50s stuff than the 70s.
70s food (in things like this) looks like 50s food that somebody threw up a bunch of skittles all over.
Specifically, you could bring the hedge hog, the cauliflower, and the grapes to a mainstream potluck and no one would bat an eyeEverybody would congratulate you on being so ironic.
But it's true that 70s food was basically a do-over of 50s food with more money and fewer inhibitions. My mother used to do a party thing in the 50s which was a tinned salmon mousse covered in aspic with bits of vegetables floating in it. It would have fitted right in here.
I don't remember the 50s or much of the 70s. I remember the early 2000s and The Gallery of Regrettable Food.
I went to a Mad Men-themed dinner party a while ago (whenever it was that the finale aired) and the host made a Perfection Salad. It was not exactly bad, but the combination of flavors was so strange that I couldn't eat it, it freaked me out too much. Also, it looked like murder on a plate.
Specifically, you could bring the hedge hog, the cauliflower, and the grapes to a mainstream potluck and no one would bat an eye.
You could bring the hedgehog. People now are ok with whimsically-shaped desserts (and also, desserts that have obviously been touched too much, thanks to Food Channel shows where every cake is manipulated until it no longer resembles food), but i think it grosses us out when savory foods don't look like themselves. That cauliflower is veering into horror food territory.
I figured the cauliflower thing was de rigeur in Halfordland.
I feel like many eyes would be batted if you brought one of those dishes to, say, any given Midwestern or Great Plains church potluck.
It might be praised after the initial reaction, but it would be outre.
Why was there such an obsession with pineapple?
Hedgehog yes. Everything else, nononononono.
You don't think the grapes would seem unremarkable?
Stuffing grapes just seems like an insane way to spend time.
But...but...the hedgehog! Sticking all those little almond flake spines into icing!
Somebody was probably stuffing grape leaves and got ambition.
Was the popularity of pineapple a spinoff of the general faddishness of Hawaii, surfing, tiki, etc?
I'm with jms re: cauliflower surprise.
It's undoubtably a surprise, but in the same way that the guys head exploding in Scanners is a surprise.
Pineapple was the kale of the 70s.