Michael Cecchi-Azzolina, who grew up in Brooklyn in the 1960s and early ’70s, remembers chicken à la king as diner food: white bread, cream of mushroom soup, maybe some frozen peas and carrots.

Dear Eric: We want to do a retro ’70s dinner party. I seem to recall chicken à la king was madly fashionable. I know it involved chicken and mushrooms in a white sauce over vol au vent shells.