Yeah, I think that Jell-o publicized the hell out of Jell-o salads. They also have a place in the history of American religion. Mormons aren't allowed to drink tea or coffee, but they are not subject to bans on gelatin, so Salt Lake City is the leading market for lime Jell-O in the world. Mormon families have many communal social events that involve bringing food, and gelatin molds are de rigueur. (Or de regooey.)
Jewish immigrants to the United States also eagerly adopted Jell-o as a dessert and especially as a molding medium--Portnoy remembers the miracle of his mother suspending peaches in Jell-o. There's a traditional European Jewish dish called p'tcha, which is calf's foot jelly, and sweet gelatin dishes were readily adopted in the US. Powdered gelatin dessert mixes were cheap, kept forever, and showed that the greenhorn was assimilating by eating "American" food.
In fact one of the impetuses for the development of commercial kosher food was a kerfuffle about precisely which gelatin mixes were kosher enough. Now there are multiple kashruth-certifying organizations, and if you keep kosher you have to ask your rabbi which "heckshers" (symbols of kashruth) are acceptable.
In my neighborhood, most of the stores are owned by Muslim Pakistani immigrants, so halal dessert-making powder, in lemon, orange, and mango flavors is readily available, although I think it's made with cornstarch rather than gelatin, so every once in a while I flirt with the idea of buying some because it's vegetarian.
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Re: What Did Mayonnaise Ever Do to Them?
Date: 2017-06-15 01:54 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think that Jell-o publicized the hell out of Jell-o salads. They also have a place in the history of American religion. Mormons aren't allowed to drink tea or coffee, but they are not subject to bans on gelatin, so Salt Lake City is the leading market for lime Jell-O in the world. Mormon families have many communal social events that involve bringing food, and gelatin molds are de rigueur. (Or de regooey.)
Jewish immigrants to the United States also eagerly adopted Jell-o as a dessert and especially as a molding medium--Portnoy remembers the miracle of his mother suspending peaches in Jell-o. There's a traditional European Jewish dish called p'tcha, which is calf's foot jelly, and sweet gelatin dishes were readily adopted in the US. Powdered gelatin dessert mixes were cheap, kept forever, and showed that the greenhorn was assimilating by eating "American" food.
In fact one of the impetuses for the development of commercial kosher food was a kerfuffle about precisely which gelatin mixes were kosher enough. Now there are multiple kashruth-certifying organizations, and if you keep kosher you have to ask your rabbi which "heckshers" (symbols of kashruth) are acceptable.
In my neighborhood, most of the stores are owned by Muslim Pakistani immigrants, so halal dessert-making powder, in lemon, orange, and mango flavors is readily available, although I think it's made with cornstarch rather than gelatin, so every once in a while I flirt with the idea of buying some because it's vegetarian.