Remember when holiday parties were maybe a little too fun? We’re pretty sure that several of these appetizers were present at the time. The best thing about serving a retro app is that they’re one part cocktail snack but also one part conversation starter. Even the shy violet will be able to strike up a chat about those deviled eggs on the buffet, or maybe the rumaki (there’s always someone in the crowd who needs rumaki introduced to them, after all). So get the drinks flowing and put out some of these hors d’oeuvres, and let the good times roll just like back in the day.

We love the pub name for any dried fruit, stuffed with cheese or a nut and wrapped in bacon: devils on horseback. Said to be named for the evocative look of armor once the bacon is cooked, one might also imagine that the name is appropriate for an appetizer that you want gallop right into your mouth. In any case, bacon-wrapped anything was a popular choice for apps steadily throughout the 20th century, also seen in the cousin to the devils, rumaki. But here, the stuffing gets a little modern flair, with goat cheese and pesto.

Though shrimp cocktail oozes midcentury vibes, it has never gone out of style, because a big ol’ pile of shrimp just feels celebratory. Still, a great shrimp cocktail is more than just cold shrimp and cocktail sauce, although it can also be that, in a pinch. If you’re preparing from scratch, it would behoove you to pay attention to putting lots of flavorful aromatics in the poaching liquid, just barely cooking through, and then serving with a nose-tingling cocktail sauce pumped up with horseradish.

Though we can’t say for sure, it’s a logical leap, whenever something was big in the 1980s, to say that it might have been launched by The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, which was published in 1979 and an instant-classic with home cooks who loved entertaining, nationwide. In it, you’ll find a recipe for Brie wrapped in phyllo, exemplifying exactly their ethos of elegance, ease and deliciousness. Theirs is simply pastry and cheese, but it was not uncommon to serve baked Brie with a compote, whether tucked the pastry before baking or served on the side. These apps take all those flavors and convert them to tiny single-bites, combining a nutty grape compote with a dainty slice of the cheese in little phyllo cups.

The decorative presentation of a good old-fashioned cheese ball means that it always brings a chuckle—or maybe it’s how it’s, without jest, called, cheese ball. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a Midwestern household where you didn’t encounter a cheese ball at a holiday party. The chuckling stops as soon as you start eating it. Spread on crackers, it’s the hors d’eouvre that you come back to during cleanup, or a few hours later when you’re feeling snacky, or even stealing a swipe of at breakfast, until it’s gone.

Despite their name, sausage balls, a holiday must-have in the South, are more akin to a biscuit than a meatball, with bits of sausage and cheese baked right into them. It’s likely that the advent of biscuit mix, a midcentury staple, helped popularize these. Here, we Italianize them, uniting Italian sweet sausage with the uber-acidic and sweet cherry peppers and some mozzarella, for a sausage-and-peppers moment married to that Southern biscuit that we’re simply not angry at.

Do we even need to explain the appeal of pigs in blankets? There’s a reason why you’ll still see them even at the fanciest of parties, passed on trays alongside the lofty apps like caviar and oysters, and that is because it’s the appetizer that most of us crave most of all. Here, Ree Drummond fancies them up for the holidays, serving a zippy cranberry-spiked mustard alongside.

When you hear “clams casino,” can’t you just visualize the pinkie rings? Though the origin of these stuffed clams remains up for debate, what is settled is that it was likely a New England spin on the Italian stuffed clams that were in vogue in the Italian restaurants of the area in the early 20th century. And that New England spin is pairing bacon with clams, a trick that is always a good idea, giving that briny-sweet bivalve a salty broiled hat for flavor and textural contrast perfection.

Cheese straws were another midcentury hit, corresponding with the appearance of frozen puff pastry in grocery stores, bringing this rarified item into the home kitchens of anyone interested in experimenting. Many cheese straws were simply frozen puff pastry sprinkled with cheese, then sliced into long strips and twisted up for baking. But if you said “cheese straw” in the South, it meant a different version, and one we are partial to: A short cheese dough stuffed into a cookie press and piped into crumbly, cheesy crackers, like these from Trisha Yearwood. There is simply nothing better with a martini or a glass of bubbly. They are reason enough to buy a cookie press, if you don’t already have one.

We’re sure you had that one aunt who was responsible for bringing the deviled eggs to a party, because we all had that aunt. And whether she spooned in the whipped yolk or piped it into those little white divots, and whether she dusted with paprika or refrained, it just wasn’t a party without them. We’d maintain that it’s still not a party without deviled eggs. They’re always a point of conversation; you have that small contingency that is decidedly not interested, but the much larger population that wants to pop them in one bite. (You can guess which category we’re in.)

Another craze launched by the Italian restaurants of the 20th century was the stuffed mushroom. At its most basic, button mushrooms, their caps already shaped like boats begging to be filled with something, would be stuffed with chopped stems, aromatics, herbs, breadcrumbs and cheese; but the dish took off with every flight of fancy, and you would see mushrooms that contained bacon, blue cheese, crabmeat, foie gras and so on. Here, Ina Garten sees to it that these mushrooms complement their earthiness with sausage and enriched with mascarpone.

Recipe developers Allison and Matt Robicelli say, "When you think "1970s Party" you think fondue. Still, it defies logic that a pot full of melted cheese has been out of fashion for over 40 years. In these Instagram-obsessed times, could there possibly be something more attractive than putting a pot of sexy cheese in a room full of sexy people? Absolutely not. Call your friends over immediately, because it's time to get your #cheesevibes on."

You can be sure that anything with “Rockefeller” in the name will be making reference to wealth, and that is definitely the case for oysters Rockefeller, although whether it’s due to the refinement of the dish or the presence of the green spinach (= money) is up for debate. Ina’s version is one that anyone should be proud to serve to a Rockefeller, and that also has a smart shortcut for the home cook: Starting with frozen creamed spinach for the oyster’s topping. A nip of anise-y Pernod and a shower of grated Parmesan and Gruyere complete the app’s journey to utter richness.

Swedish meatballs have had their peaks and dips in popularity in the United States, first in the 1950s and 60s when there was a sudden craze for all things Scandinavian (and a love for anything that could be kept warm in a chafing dish), and then again in the 1980s, when IKEAs spreading nationwide sold them for dining in, and frozen for taking home. That signature combination of a little allspice and Worcestershire sauce to pump up the savory meatiness, bound together in a rich cream sauce, is still delightful anytime.

Though munching on raw veggies was not unknown before the midcentury, it probably took a little rebranding by James Beard, as “crudités,” to mean that suddenly no party was complete without a platter of them. And they are a very logical and very welcome inclusion, often the only fresh and crunchy palate-cleanser in a sea of rich dishes (and served with a dip, so make no mistake that this is not some health-food-inspired trend). Occasionally crudités platters will include some veggies that require a quick-cook to render them ideal, and though this is typically a quick boil followed by a shock in ice water, there’s no reason it can’t be a light grilling, as Kardea Brown does here.

The irresistible combination of the gamey savoriness of chicken liver with the crunch of water chestnut and the meltingly-crisp bacon shell makes a tray of rumaki disappear in record time at parties. The midcentury saw a huge rumaki craze, due to the advent of so-called tiki restaurants like Trader Vic’s and Don the Beachcomber supposedly bringing Hawaiian and Polynesian food to the mainland (but in actuality presenting a mashup of Asian, island and Americanized foods, drinks and artifacts). Whether you go full tropical and serve these with mai tais or with a gorgeous, smoky Manhattan, they are sure to be a hit.