There goes your image of me...

[rivka]

I made Jello tonight. For the first time in my life.

It's not the Jello of my youth, because it's lacking in canned "fruit cocktail." (My mother was a serious cook, and therefore never employed mini marshmallows.) It does have canned pears and banana slices, though.

It would never have occurred to me to make Jello, except that Alex suggested that she could bring some to school to share with the friends on her birthday. When I expressed surprise, she and Michael both informed me that they like Jello. I never knew. So we bought some, and then Michael got sick and it seemed that it would be a kindness to make something that would slip easily down his sore throat.

So, Jello. In our fridge. But I swear I draw the line well before Chef Boy-Ar-Dee canned ravioli.

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Jello and ice cream?! Huh. I wouldn't have imagined that.

Fruit went into Jello because, in the culture of my youth, Jello could play the role of a side dish rather than a dessert. Kind of like sane modern people might treat a tossed salad. I remember that at church suppers they would divide up the last names by alphabet to assign dishes, and one category would always be "salad or Jello."

Alex cut up the canned pears and bananas with a butter knife. She was so incredibly proud of having a "cutting job," and also helping Dad when he was sick.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Go Alex! Actually helpful, not just playing helping!

We used to have jello (which we called jelly, which led me to a truly disgusting image of peanut-butter-and-jello sandwiches when I started to read American books, ugh) with banana slices in, and also with ice-cream, and also at the bottom of a trifle. But I have never had it as a salad, and hope I never do.

Redcurrants are so strong in natural pectin that if you stew them with sugar and a tiny bit of water and then put them into a dish they will set exactly like jello. So as an adult who naturally feels that jello is... is... um... what, low class? Gosh. Anyway, for years if I've wanted to make trifle I've done it with a layer of stewed redcurrants.

So why do we desipse jello anyway? Where did this come from? When did it start? My grandmother didn't despise it, and if it was possible to have a purely snobbish reaction against anything she would have. So it must be a relatively new thing I absorbed as something nice people either don't do or are embarrassed about doing later. Did Jello suddenly become embarrassingly declasse in the eighties?

All those redcurrants, all those years, stripped in the service of an invisible and unexamined snobbery -- I like blackcurrant jello. Gah. Mind you, I like stewed redcurrants too, and I like stripping them off their little vines. But I also like stirring the jello cubes. Go figure.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

So why do we desipse jello anyway?

i suspect classism.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Go Alex! Actually helpful, not just playing helping!

You were right, it's surprising how early they can be helpful for real. The things she loves doing that I appreciate most are peeling cloves of garlic and peeling shrimp, but she can also take the strings out of sugar snap peas, put things like nuts and raisins into measuring cups, take the shells off hard-boiled eggs, and peel carrots or cucumbers with a vegetable peeler.

So why do we desipse jello anyway? Where did this come from? When did it start?

Ironically, I've heard that originally Jello was a sign of high class status, because serving Jello meant that you could afford a refrigerator.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

So why do we desipse jello anyway?

During the 1950s, it was a staple element of "Quick and Easy home cooking" in America. See http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/jello/ for the illustrated history of Jello in America, going back to 1930.

[ailbhe]

Jellyanicecream is really part of children's party food, here. Also, some people make trifle with jelly, but we never did - my mother's family's recipe is sponge cake covered in raspberry jam, soaked in the juice from tins of fruit, layered with the fruit from the same tins, and sherry, covered in custard, chilled and left to set, then covered in whipped cream.

The idea that it would be served instead of something nutritious seems a bit odd.

We also used to buy blocks of it and eat them not-made-up-with-water as sweets, cut up into tiny bits. It was a fad which lasted a summer.

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

When you put a lot of raw vegetables in it (or cut up fruit) it is nutritious, although having too much sugar. Those old Jello salads used the Jello to bind a lot of other ingredients together, and I guess should be looked at in comparison to dressing on a conventional salad.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

some people make trifle with jelly, but we never did - my mother's family's recipe is sponge cake covered in raspberry jam,

See, this is the reverse of papersky picturing Americans eating peanut butter and Jello sandwiches. I knew that trifle had layers of cake, jelly, fruit, and custard, but I never translated it as British English, so I never pictured it as having anything but the jam kind of jelly. Huh.

(I've never had trifle.)

[echosupernova.livejournal.com]

That's funny--my mother almost always either put canned fruit inside or topped Jello with bananas, and it was always served as a light dessert.

She also holds to the culture of Jello concoctions at major holidays--lime jello blended with cream cheese and crushed pineapple for Thanksgiving, and lemon Jello with rice, mini marshmellows, and marischino cherries (called "Glorified Rice) for Easter. The lime one is quite tasty, though I know it sounds weird.

I too like black cherry flavor.

[selki.livejournal.com]

I've enjoyed lime jello with cottage cheese and crush pineapple inside, kind of the same idea.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

In my wife's family that is a traditional holiday dish, lovingly known as "Green Slime."

[selki.livejournal.com]

Some Asian tea/ice cream shops around here serve shakes and ice cream with Jello in them.