11 Retro Cooking Techniques You've Probably Forgotten About

Some cooking techniques have stood the test of time, surviving changing tastes and trends and remaining as popular today as they were centuries ago. For example, research suggests that people have been stewing meat with aromatics like shallots, leeks, and garlic for at least 4,000 years, and the earliest evidence of soup can be traced all the way back to 20,000 B.C. Both of these dishes wouldn't be out of place on a kitchen table today.

However, if you placed a steaming bowl of soup next to, say, a Jell-O salad or a Spam fritter, your feast would quickly start to look dated — because not all cooking techniques or dishes are built to last. Over the past few decades, many different styles of cooking have fallen in and out of favor. In many cases, it's for good reason (cooking an entire chicken in the microwave, for example, might be convenient, but it won't produce the best-tasting result). In other cases, the world might be a better place if certain dishes had a revival — baked Alaska, anyone?

If you're in the mood for some nostalgia or want to cook up one of your favorite yet long-forgotten dishes from days gone by, we've listed some of the most retro cooking techniques below. There's a taste trip down memory lane for everyone, from blackened redfish and salmon mousse to barbecued bologna.

You can still order your fish blackened in restaurants today, but back in the 1980s, this cooking technique — which involves charring heavily seasoned fish — was everywhere. Paul Prudhomme, a Louisiana chef, pioneered the technique in the 1980s. He created this signature dish at his restaurant: K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. There, his blackened redfish not only thrilled his own customers, but it spread from the restaurant across Louisiana and turned into a national trend.

By the mid-1980s, everyone was attempting blackened fish, with varying degrees of success. The technique is hard to master due to the high-heat cooking method. The idea is to smother the fish in butter and a spice coating, which consists of ingredients like paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, basil, and oregano. The fish has a dark crust, while the inside is tender and flaky. While fish was one of the most popular foods to blacken at that time, the technique can be used on other types of protein, including chicken, steak, and even tofu.

Prudhomme's protein of choice, redfish, led to a boom in demand for the species (which is also known as red drum). In fact, redfish became so popular that the population started to decline dramatically in the 1980s. In the end, Louisiana had to impose limits on the amount of redfish that could be taken from the ocean.

Although Jell-O was invented more than a century ago, it's still enjoyed by people all over the U.S. today. Usually eaten as a snack or dessert, it's not as popular as it once was, but it's still a mainstay on grocery shelves all over the country. While you might add some Jell-O to your cart if you're hosting a children's birthday party, you're unlikely to do so if you're planning a salad lunch. But back in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Jell-O salad was all the rage.

Jell-O was part of the processed food boom; it was convenient, versatile, and novel. And so, it was added to many, many different types of salad, alongside ingredients like prunes, chili sauce, mayonnaise, cottage cheese, and even tuna.

If the idea of all of that makes your stomach churn, you'll be pleased to know that by the time we reached the 1970s, Jell-O salads were falling out of favor. This was for a few reasons. Firstly, food, like fashion, simply follows trends, and many people were ready to try something new. Convenience foods were on the rise in the 1980s, including everything from Lunchables and Cool Ranch Doritos to Lean Cuisine.

You can't go wrong with chocolate cake. Americans have loved this classic, indulgent treat since the late 19th century, and it remains one of the most popular cake flavors even today.

In the 1990s, Americans also couldn't get enough of chocolate cake. But back then, they were all about serving this beloved cake hot. It was called molten chocolate cake (or lava cake), and it was first created by the French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who owned and ran a restaurant in the Trump International Hotel and Tower. For dessert, his elite guests (including Donald Trump himself) were often treated to warm chocolate cake.

Others have claimed the invention of molten chocolate cake, but Vongerichten was always steadfast that he discovered the dessert was tasty served warm, with a runny inside, when he accidentally removed chocolate cakes from the oven before they were fully baked in the late 1980s. Whoever actually invented warm chocolate cake, the truth remains: It was a hit that transcended fancy restaurants. Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, you could find it everywhere, from celebrity-studded restaurants and Disney World to Walmart.

Chocolate lava cake might have dominated 1990s dessert menus, but in home kitchens, it was all about the bread machine. Traditional breadmaking is incredibly time-consuming. There are many stages to it, including ensuring the dough is the right consistency and then resting it before stretching and kneading it. It also has to rise before it's baked in the oven. The process is long and arduous, to say the least. But this is what you had to go through if you wanted to forgo the grocery store or the bakery and make bread from scratch. 

But in the late 1980s, everything changed. Japanese company Panasonic (which used to be called Matsushita Electric) invented the bread machine — and it was a game-changer. All of that stretching and kneading and baking was done for you in one handy machine. In 1999, per the LA Times, one in every five American households owned a bread machine. In the same year, the bread machine industry announced that January would officially be known as National Bread Machine Baking Month.

But the hype didn't last, and bread machines stopped being so trendy after a while. Of course, you can still buy bread machines today, and some outlets suggest they're becoming more popular again. Will bread makers hit the big time again? Dust off your old 1990s bread maker and see for yourself.

Cookouts are, to this day, a summertime staple. Whether it's the Fourth of July or just a sunny, warm Saturday, grilling food outside is one of America's favorite pastimes. In fact, 2025 data from Talker Research suggests that 66% of Americans say grilling season is their favorite time of the year. If you're hosting a barbecue today, you're likely to serve up burgers, of course, as well as hot dogs, ribs, or even watermelon. But back in the 1950s, there might have been some luncheon meat in the mix, too.

This is because, while grilling was in fashion in the 1950s, fresh cuts of meat like steak were still a luxury food. Luncheon and canned meat, however, were far more accessible and affordable. Spam, for example, was big at this time. In fact, Hormel produced one billion cans of the ultra-processed ground pork and ham by 1959. But it was bologna sausage (also known as bologna) that was the star of the barbecue.

In 1956, for example, Better Homes & Gardens published its own grilling cookbook, aptly named the "Barbecue Book," which featured a recipe for skewered ring bologna. "Good Housekeeping's Summertime Cookbook," another 1950s classic, also featured a recipe for barbecued bologna.

Bologna was on the barbecue, but in the '40s, '50s, and '60s, Spam was dominating kitchens. Invented in the 1930s by Hormel Foods, the processed meat became a popular affordable choice during the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond. It was used in everything from broiled humdingers (that's luncheon meat with rolled oats, milk, ketchup, mustard, and peaches) to fritters.

Spam fritters were a wartime staple in England in the 1940s. They were made by simply combining the Spam with flour and water and then frying it in fat. Usually, the fritters were served with French fries or mashed potatoes and some form of vegetable or baked beans. But Spam fritters weren't confined to the war years. They also became a British school lunch staple, eaten by millions of children across the U.K. throughout the 1960s and even the 1970s.

Today, Spam is still popular in several countries (it's a key part of Hawaiian Spam musubi, for example), but across the wider U.S. and in the U.K., it has fallen out of favor. And you're unlikely to find it on a school menu anymore. In general, schools in the U.K. have been moving away from ultra-processed foods since the 2000s.

In 1961, American chef Julia Child published her first cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," alongside Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. The book was very influential and helped to popularize French cooking techniques across America through the 1960s and beyond. Child followed up the release with another volume and  "The French Chef Cookbook," cementing her as the American queen of French-style cuisine. To this day, Child is still synonymous with dishes like boeuf bourguignon and quiche Lorraine.

Her style of cooking represented a rejection of the processed food hype that was also growing at the time (ahem, looking at you, Jell-O salads). It was sophisticated and elegant. Boeuf bourguignon, in particular, was seen as one of the best dishes to cook for your guests when entertaining during the 1960s and 1970s.

Americanized French dishes are still regulars in many households today, but they're not quite as popular as they used to be. By the mid-2000s, people in the U.S. and around the world, just weren't as fussed about French cuisine. In fact, one survey by The Wall Street Journal Europe by GfK Custom Research Worldwide, conducted in 2006 and involving more than 20,000 people from 20 countries, found that most people thought of French food as overrated.

When you think of mousse today, you probably think of something sweet and indulgent, like chocolate mousse or maybe a fruity flavor, like strawberry or lemon. What probably doesn't come to mind is veal mousse. Yes, we're talking about real veal — as in the meat. It was an actual dish in the 1980s. So was pike mousse, chicken mousse, and salmon mousse. In the 1980s (and earlier), if you really believed, anything could be a mousse.

Chocolate mousse was also a thing back then, so when you'd finished your savory course of fish mousse, you could move on to something sweet and mousse-like. The good news is it is rare to find a savory mousse in cookbooks or restaurant menus today. Again, this is because tastes tend to change with the trends. For example, now, vegan mousse is becoming quite popular. That's a far cry from veal and fish.

At some point in the mid-1950s, somebody discovered that if you mix a packet of Lipton's dehydrated soup with sour cream, it creates a creamy onion dip. And while the identity of that person is unknown, they have left behind quite the legacy, because in the years after, everyone was doing it. Even the Lipton brand got in on the hype, using the recipe for what became known as California dip and later French onion dip, to promote its packaged soup.

Again, the popularity of the dip in the 1950s likely came down to convenience. Making dips from scratch takes time, energy, and ingredients, but the simple mix of a packet of soup and sour cream meant you could whip up a dip for your dinner party guests in seconds.

It's unlikely that the trend of packaged soup and sour cream will make a comeback anytime soon. One of the most likely reasons for that is that pre-made dips and condiments that don't require any mixing at all are everywhere now. In 2024, for example, the global condiment market was valued at nearly $95 billion, according to Fortune Business Insights. On the other hand, people are trying to move away from ultra-processed foods.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a household in the U.S. today that doesn't have a microwave sitting on the kitchen counter. The appliance, which was invented in the 1940s and popularized in the 1970s and 1980s, makes everything from reheating leftovers to popping corn quick and easy. If you believe David Chang, you can also whip up everything from steamed mussels to salmon and rice in the microwave, too.

In the 1980s, as microwaves were becoming a household staple, people tried to test the boundaries of what this machine could do. And not all of the microwave tips and tricks of the time had staying power. Today, you'd be unlikely to use the microwave if you wanted to cook a whole chicken, for example. But back in the 1980s, it wasn't unusual to pop the bird in the microwave for an hour instead of the oven. Other 1980s recipes involved putting entire turkeys in the microwave, as well as using it to bake cookies and gingerbread and even pineapple upside-down pudding. 

Even Julia Child experimented with microwave cooking at one point. According to her grandnephew Alex Prud'homme, the esteemed chef once (unsuccessfully) used the microwave to try and cook frozen chicken, vegetables, and chocolate cake.

We mentioned chocolate lava cake; now we give you baked ice cream. We are, of course, talking about baked Alaska. This dessert — which, fun fact, is named after the town in Florida, not the American state — consists of sponge cake, meringue, and ice cream, baked together at a high heat. It was invented in the late 1800s, likely by Parisian pastry chef Charles Ranhofer, who served it for the first time at Delmonico's restaurant in New York. But the dish really started to take off in the 1950s, probably because it looked chic and impressive on the dinner table.

Some restaurants still serve baked Alaska today, but the dessert isn't as popular as it once was. Again, this is likely due to changing tastes, but it's also probably because baked Alaska takes a lot of effort and patience. It's not that it's particularly advanced or complicated, but just time-consuming. The preparation alone, for example, can take around two and a half hours. It's not a quick dessert, and today, many cooks and chefs simply favor lower-fuss options. That said, if you want to try a vintage baked Alaska, you'll still find it on the menu at Delmonico's.