I want to talk about something rarely discussed anymore:
Gelatin molds.
I am a child of the 1980s, when Bill Cosby popularized the Jell-O JIGGLER, and cherry-flavored star-shaped gelatin doubled as both a snack for when wasn’t feeling well and a dessert as good as any other. But throughout the 1950s and 60s, it turns out, gelatin could cross even more genres. For example, the popular “jellied lamb salad” combined a hot meal and a cold snack, featuring broiled lamb chops and green beans encased in unflavored gelatin.
Perhaps not surprisingly, that recipe has since gone to wayside. But new, evolved gelatin molds, also called congealed salads, may now be making a comeback.
Southern Living recently published an article titled, “Congealed Salads: Then and Now,” listing much more sensible (dare I say delicious?) dishes such as the “berry and bubbles,” made with prosecco, club soda, fresh blackberries and raspberries, and unflavored gelatin.
Like that 1990s Jell-O commercial used to say, “Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle …” as it makes its way back onto our menus.