My roommate, who’s a kitchen manager, inherited a bunch of cookbooks from the owner moving and was looking through them for inspiration.

One of them was like “cookbook for a cocktail party”, circa late ‘60s or early ‘70s, and it’s shocking how many of the recipes involve near-zero technique and rely on some “exotic” ingredient - avocado, fresh (not canned) fruit, remotely tolerable wine - that’s absolutely trivial today.