How Comfort Food (and Music) from the 1980s Nourished My Family During the Pandemic
Despite the actual mess that followed, things are now starting to feel like they are cleaner and brighter — like they are looking up
The hot potato exhaled a small puff of steam. I pinched the flesh open, dropped in a knuckle-sized piece of butter, and showered it with salt. At the dinner table we’d add shredded cheese from a bag, dollops of sour cream, sliced green onions, and yes, (homemade) bacon bits. It was six o’clock on a cold night in January 2022, the third calendar year of the pandemic, and dinner was served.
It was Eighties Night.
Eighties Night began with fish sticks — a Costco-sized box purchased in March 2020 by my husband. I put them in the deep freezer in the garage, but couldn’t imagine actually eating them. A few weeks later, hungry and tired, we did. I lay two crispy rectangles into a small flour tortilla, topped them with red salsa and sliced avocado, and called them fish tacos.
It didn’t go over well.
“Just love the fish sticks as they are,” my husband said. So, I did. Before I knew it, fish sticks — served with white rice and buttered frozen peas — were a “thing.” When the jumbo box of pale-crusted cod ran out, I bought more.
I thought about the famous Van de Kamp’s commercials. The ones where the freezer doors wouldn’t close because the fish sticks were made from cod so fresh it was flopping. The ads reminded me of my childhood and my mother. Capable, kind, and unflappable, she was the kind of pandemic parent I wanted to be. But the truth was, most nights I felt more like Dee Wallace, the mom in the movie ET. Tired and restless, I was just happy to get food on the dinner table.
You might guess I looked to the 1980s for dinner table inspiration out of a need for comfort. Truth be told, I was a very picky child and my mother didn’t cook the type of meals that characterize the decade. Occasionally, we’d have Shake n’ Bake chicken or she’d buy a box of Rice-a-Roni. But what I remember her making was simpler. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts served in shallot sauces that I tried to avoid; linguine topped with a sauce made from canned clams that I loved.
I was drawn to “1980s meals” today for the same reason the women of the 80s were: convenience, ease, and the revelation that not every meal had to be nutritionally superior, recipe-driven, and photo-ready.
I have made raspberry jello jigglers. I have served retro bowls of canned, diced pineapple with a bright-red maraschino cherry on top. I have scooped cottage cheese onto juicy slices of pear. I keep a garlicky balsamic vinaigrette in the fridge and use it to dress chopped garden salads or mixed greens with dried cranberries, diced apples, and crumbled blue cheese. Sometimes we get fancy and cook steaks. I make creamed spinach and warm buttery rolls. I bake lots and lots of russet potatoes, serving them next to meat or fish, or as meals on their own, topped with steamed broccoli and shredded white cheddar cheese.
There has been pudding from a box (chocolate and vanilla), and cinnamon rolls made from a Pillsbury Hot Roll Mix that I ordered for ten bucks from Amazon. One time, when the grocery store was out of our usual “bunny pasta,” I bought boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese. This was my one big failure — the kids pushed away their bowls.
Some days, I worry I’ve gone down market, that my high standards for food and beauty have been tossed into the trash, that I’m a bad mom. But then I remind myself of all the good things eighties night has given us. On one night a week, I have time (it doesn’t take long to heat that oven and open a box of frozen fish!) and fun. The kids love it.
On Eighties Night, there’s an ease and simplicity at the table. I haven’t invested too much in the meal, so I’m less offended when my kids turn up their noses. My husband and I laugh at my retro concoctions and talk about our childhoods. And always — always — there is a dance party.
As political and pandemic worries bloomed like mold, “Silent Running” — a long-forgotten mid-eighties song by Mike and the Mechanics — ran through my head in a terrifying, near-endless loop. After dinner, we’d leave the dirty dishes on the table and dim the lights. The kids would plug in a cheap LED colored strobe light someone sent them for Christmas. The kids were so captivated by the colorful lights they didn’t notice how dark the songs we picked were. New Order, The Smiths, Joy Division: the tragic soundtrack to my husband’s adolescence. We’d turn the music up loud and dance — or rather the kids would shriek and dance and my husband and I would close our eyes, turn our heads up and slowly spin, our movement indicative of the swirling whirlpool of anxiety and fear we felt trapped in.
Lately, our dance parties have felt a bit more optimistic. Two of our three kids have been vaccinated. We didn’t spend the holidays totally alone. The gloomy music from my husband’s high school years has now been banned by our small children. They like “good music” — anthems from Journey and Bon Jovi. A lot of Whitney Houston. And, always, Taylor Swift.
Dancing — this time with my eyes open — I look around the room. At the yellow lamp above the dinner table. At the collection of dirty plates, the grains of rice, and little round peas the toddler has tossed emphatically on the floor. Despite the actual mess, things feel like they are cleaner and brighter — like they are looking up. I start to think about what I might make next for dinner.
Anne Zimmerman’s first book, An Extravagant Hunger: The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher, is the product of extensive research at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library. She edited two subsequent collections of Fisher’s work: Love In A Dish and Other Culinary Delights and M.F.K. Fisher: Musings on Wine & Other Libations. She lives in Portland, Oregon, and teaches for Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program.
