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Snackwells come to mind, oatmeal, anything fat free (gummi bears, jelly beans, and so forth) sugar be dammed, and I think pizza bagels and Hot Pockets were sort of from that 'era.'

What about Luncheables? They prob had those around for awhile, but I do associate them with the 90s. And what about John Macy's cheesesticks? Those became popular in the 90s. and those dipping sticks that were themed around a kangaroo? Dunkaroos? This is all kind of disgusting stuff. Didn't Boboli and caesar salad kits come out in the 90s? As for the pop rocks, why not incorporate them into a graham cracker crust and make a cheesecake with raspberry preserves? Or lemon meringue pie with pop rocks in the curd?

Pop rocks make a fun glass rimmer for cocktails

We had ring pops, gushers, bagel bites and poprocks and a lot of the other stuff mentioned in the 70s. I guess if you were a kid in the 90s that's what you were eating. I was eating a lot of pub food and drinking a lot of microbrewed beer in the 90s.

I was watching a rerun of "No Reservations" and he was at a dinner that was given by this private "members only" (yes, 80's jacket reference there) "foodies" club and they made a cheesecake and the crust had Pop Rocks in it. Seemed to go over very well with the guests and Bourdain. Don't know if his site has a recipe for it, but seemed pretty straight forward that the Pop Rocks (strawberry) were incorporated into the graham cracker crust.

Isn't that when we started eating sushi?
I was all ready to win the prize with my sugar cookie recipe or my pretend sushi and then her comes SSMom with her brilliant glass rimmer idea. =(

Drizzle cookies with melted chocolate or white chocolate and sprinkle with pop rocks.
The "sushi" is a little more complex:
Make rice krispie treats and spread them on a large sheet pan cut into strips about 4 inches wide. Spread gummy or fruit snacks down the center of the strip and fold around to make a long roll. Wrap in fruit roll-ups (for the seaweed) and slice into sushi pieces. Get it? the rice krispie is the sticky rice, the fruit snacks are the fish and the fruit leather is the seaweed. If you want some rolled in "roe", paint with a little melted white chocolate and roll in pop rocks. They look great on a platter and people young and old go nuts.
I, apparently, am the only one who doesn't eat them.

Coffeehouses hit it big (again) then, didn't it? You could serve flavored lattes and whatnot...

Might be when I discovered tilapia. Even then, fresh fish was outrageously expensive, but talapia was a mild flavored white fish that was affordable. I believe that's when I first tasted Kashi cereals, too.

oh lets see...
i was in elementary school in the 90's so for lunch i was eating

kids cuisine
clear pepsi
squeeze-its
gushers
bagel bites
fruit by the foot
drinks called Orbitz that were disgusting but i still wanted them...they had strange gel things floating in the sickeningly sweet flavored drink...
lunchables
Trix yogurt
Stoffers Mac n Cheese
Cambells Soup in a thermos (do kids take that to school anymore? i'm a teacher and never see kids bring in a thermos... that was my fav. lunch)
and i wish i could find...Koala yummies...

Crystal Pepsi

@Chiff~good memory--that is when Zima was all the rage. Syracuse was one of their first test markets and it was all over the place. I preferred microbrews myself, something that was relatively new for us.

AChiff: Oh God, Zima! They hit it big right about when I became drinking age, and we college girls were really big on it. For shits and giggles I tried it years later - it tasted like somebody bumped a beer into a Sprite. Yeesh.

These are so 'on-target'--especially the Lunchables, because I didn't have them as a child in the 80s, but after I entered high school in the 90s, I remember my friends' younger siblings begging for them.

@dhorst I also recall babysitting some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fans with a fondness for Pizza Hut Hawaiian pizza.

I still say you need a fat free candy and Snackwells table in honor of the diet craze of the era, including Sour Patch Kids--perhaps with some fat free frozen yogurt! Remember TCBY?

Chiff--another good call with the sun-dried tomatoes. Wasn't this when fancy lettuce became popular? And kiwi...

I recall eating bagels quite a bit as a teen--and although I did not partake, even sundried tomato bagels.

Jello shots with vodka, Cosmos. The 90's was all big on theme parties such as "white trash" and 80's parties. I seem to remember alot of pizzas with different types of toppings started to show up like pesto, bar b q, and thai pizzas different toppings. Thai, Vietnamese and Indian foods. I believe the Caesar salad came back in the ninties, wraps and pinwheels. Hummus and felafals (sp) became big.

I remember Crystal Pepsi and Zima being part of that trend with all things clear. Not something you could really find today, though. How about dippin' dots? I remember those being huge for a minute.

don't forget to serve HAZELNUT coffee at your party.... that was big in the 90's....

personally i never heard of some of these foods.... pop rocks? what are they?

eating sun-dried tomatoes, no doubt. i just bought a huge jar of them, btw.

Wow, thanks everyone! These are all AWESOME ideas. I'm thinking of making homemade bagel bites with sundried tomatoes and definitely using poprocks as a rimmer. It sounds like I am better off doing less cooking and letting the store-bought packaging and branding speak for itself. (That should make hosting a breeze.!)I can't wait to go to the store this afternoon and see what else I can find.
Also, just a random thought-- remember Butter Buds during the "no butter" diet craze? what WERE those?? Little balls of cancerous chemicals? Oh, the things we'll do when told we'll lose a pound...
I'll have to track some down in case any of my guests need a little sprinkle on their bagel bites :)

Krystal chicken sandwiches masquerading as KFC Chicken Littles.

All things portobello mushroom. Stuffed, burger, in a pasta sauce. I feel like they were soooo popular in the 90's.

Oh man! I remember Zima now! Thank you, thank you for that memory. When were the gyro's popular? I think the 80's actually.... Now there are some good years! Remember when the rumor was started everywhere that a kid ate pop rocks and drank Coke and his guts exploded? Or was that a rumor only in my hick town? Oh God, it was a rumor right?AAARGH! My brain hurts... Gotta go get some sleep.

Pizza in the mornin'
Pizza in the evenin'
Pizza at suppertime;
When you put pizza on a bagel,
You can eat pizza anytime!

That little jingle will be in my head for the next several weeks...

chilean sea bass. ah the carefree days when we could rape the seas without guilt.

In the early '90s I was a natural and organic food reviewer. I can tell you that a few things made their debut then:

1. Gardenburgers
2. Salad in a bag, specifically Fresh Express
3. Sun-dried tomato pesto
4. Chocolate with chili peppers in it

I notice that a lot of the items listed above date from further back in history than the 1990s.

While biscotti are much older than that, I remember that there was a biscotti explosion in the coffee/tea houses in the 1990s. Hope your 1990s party is a blast.

@cstone - I mentioned Dunkaroos! And weren't those the best? Much better than Handy Snacks in my opinion.
And your bringing up Capri Sun reminded me of another drink that came out in the 90s - Mondo. It came in a wax bottle and had fairly nasty juice inside. Their commercials were pretty cool though. I don't think they make Mondo anymore.

@Emsev333--We used to drink Bartles and James Wine coolers with gummy bears dropped in them.

I was going to suggest pop rocks chocolate bark too, like sustarz. Had some last Christmas and it was addicting mostly because the pop rocks would sizzle as the chocolate melted in your mouth....

@KBestOliver -- I'll see your Snapple & raise you a Fruitopia! (although Snapple is actually still available for purchase, which probably makes it a more useful suggestion.)

. . . and, yes, the all time favourite - those large, round, revolting hockey pucks of styrofoam, rice cakes - if you were on a diet, you were on those things.

@kristen: lovin' it! i think that if you want non-gross food, that's the best way to go.

are lucky charms still around? btw, you could have a bunch of different cereals to choose from, as a nod to "seinfeld," which seems to have defined that decade for people a bit older than me.

Oh, yes, Chicken Tonight! VERY '90s.

You could also do an Atkins diet theme, although that did bleed over into the Noughts. I used to have a morbidly obese customer who would order two bacon cheeseburgers, no bun, and steamed vegetables with extra Ranch dressing. We had good sized burgers (close to half a pound) and I insisted on a healthy dose of cheese and bacon on every one. It was probably in the neighbourhood of 2000 calories. He didn't lose the weight.

Do they still make that citrus drink "Five Alive"?

I went to lots of dinner and eating parties back then -- both corporate-office-bought and on the fly potlucks that were more my style. Ceasar salad and cosmos for sure. I think I had my first wedge salad in the 90s. Thai was popular. Lattes or even cafe au laits. Chilean and Spanish wine. So were micro brews. At the lower end for beer, Henry Weinhard's was big in the northwest where I lived. Prosciutto wrapped around things. Raw oysters. Cigars. Smoking of anything out in the open more or less. Sorbet for dessert.