I tried recipes from the 1970s for a day — here's what I learned

Denise O’Donoghue goes back to food basics for a day, trying recipes from cookery books that her mum got as a birthday present shortly before getting married 

Denise O'Donoghue spends a day cooking like it’s the 1970s to see how it compares to today's food. Picture Dan Linehan

You may have heard that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and if my father’s gift-buying habits in the 1970s are anything to go by, it would seem he agreed with that statement.

My parents married in 1976. A few months before their nuptials, my late father Michael gave my mother Mary two cookbooks for her birthday, both instructing wives and mothers how to feed their families. Optimistic, right?