PARTY LIKE IT'S 1984

Entertaining now is quite different than it was 40 years ago, but our recipes stand the test of time

- LISA CERICOLA

It started with a missing salad.

Back in 2021, a reader named Susan posted this message to the 30,000-plus members of our What’s Cooking With Southern Living Facebook group: “I am missing page 325 from my 1984 SL annual cookbook and it has my favorite salad (oranges, bacon, nuts) on it. Ugh!! If anyone has that page could you please post a photo of the front and back? Thank you.”

A salad? From the 1980s? Sounds like a long shot request. But within minutes, readers were coming to Susan’s rescue, sharing images from their own 1984 Southern Living Annual Recipes cookbooks. Our food-section archive, which is sold annually in hard-cover volumes, occupies a special place on many people’s shelves. Often handed down through the generations, they are not just helpful for reference but are also time capsules of how Southerners cooked and entertained. As one commenter named Dotty replied to Susan: “So glad to know I’m not the only one holding onto all those old annual cookbooks! ’83 and ’84 were the best!”

After that, we started noticing other mentions of the 1984 icon here and there on our social media channels. Commenters shared beloved recipes and photos of their tattered copies that were flagged with paper clips and missing their covers. Others purchased used versions and joined the bandwagon. One said: “I’m sitting here reading the book like a novel and so happy that I bought it!”