Who would have thought that the desire for Jell-O would make a woman act so suspicious and sneaky? She's whispering into the telephone, and looks positively guilty. How much Jell-O is she ordering each week? Maybe this is a daily phone call. In which case, we need to stage a little intervention. Maisie, you need to find some other dessert ideas! Your family is getting tired of all those lemon and lime molded Taj Mahals.Or maybe she's whispering because she's married to a guy who works for Cox's Gelatine.
In any case, here's a little circa 1910 Jell-O recipe, to give you an idea of what Maisie might do with all these variegated boxes of gelatin powder, once the delivery boy brings them over. I refuse to speculate about Maisie and the delivery boy, we're going to stick to Jell-O today. I don't have any Taj Mahal recipes (sadly, I made that up) but how about this instead:
The image is from the cover of a pamphlet, circa 1910, from Duke University's Emergence of Advertising in America. The recipe and the picture of the result is from the same source. There are some wonderful illustrations all through the booklet, including many "dishes of extreme beauty." I'm sure Maisie has made them all many, many times.
22 comments:
And look at that flush in her cheeks! Yep, she is definitely up to some Jell-O foolishness.
If anything turns up missing, I suggest going over to her house and seeing if she's swiped it to suspend in her diabolical Jell-O creations!
There is a joke at my house, if you want to send me screaming from the room, serve yellow Jell-O.
Spent a year in the hospital once. For me Jell-O is a form of torture!
-fM
Great blog - thank you. Now, if you could only add a labels widget!
My oldest daughter was always scared of Jell-O until she was around three.
The jiggling threw her off I guess...but, it scared her.
She's a professor now...go figure????
Happy Weekend,
Jackie:-)
But then again, in due time, Jell-O would be identified with the likes of Jack Benny, The Aldrich Family and Lucille Ball (when Jell-O sponsored the radio sitcom My Favorite Husband, as would be a steppingstone for I Love Lucy on TV)....
My grandmother, who would have been 100 a few years back, was a jello maven. All the kids at Christmas eve would speculate on what stunning and colorful jello concoction she had brought. It all makes so much sense now that you've shown me this.
Well, the rainbow tier dessert pictured does not look appetizing to me and I would hate to speculate what flavor that gray colored layer might be. Yuck!
LOL
In Oz we call it jelly ( and what you call jelly we call jam) but jelly seems to have gone out of favour for sweets (desserts) and kids' parties here.
One old Aussie favourite is Frog in a pond - make green jelly in indivdual bowls and just before it sets in the fridge pop in a chocolate frog (Aussie Freddo frogs) and serve.
Oh I just love that ad! But I'll skip the Jell-O
Heather - She certainly is, that minx!
Hairball - Yes, I think Jell-O is only the tip of the (gelatin-based) iceberg...
fM - I can understand that...For me it conjures up bad college cuisine. Coffee jello isn't bad though.
Jane - That's a great idea, I'll see what I can do!
Shinade - It can look a little weird! In college we used to put jello cubes in clear soda (like Sprite) and it really jumped around.
Exaggerator - Isn't it funny that I Love Lucy was sponsored by Philip Morris cigarettes - so much less innocuous than Jell-O - on TV?
Margo - That was the era of Jell-O! My mother had The Joys of Jell-O cookbook and it was full of amazing things.
Judy - Me neither! And it's funny that they didn't use chocolate Jell-O, because according to this booklet, that was a flavor back then and some of the other recipes do use it.
Jayne - Does the chocolate frog really look like a frog?
Barbara - Yes, me too :)
Serving jello was a status symbol in its early years in states like North Dakota, because only those who were well-off enough to have a refrigerator could make it.
Well, with a jingle that says,
Watch it wiggle
Watch it jiggle
No wonder she's whispering.
Sharkbytes - That makes sense. And come to think of it, Alice Kramden never served Jell-O (I'll bet Trixie did though, the Nortons ahd a lot of fancy things that they bought 'on time').
Me-Me - Yup, the Jell-O is a clue to plenty else that's going on!
I see a woman who loves her Jell-O shots. So drunk is she from the last batch that she can't even stand up to make the call. She's reduced to the floor, like David Hasselhoff in the bathroom.
This is what the choccie Freddo Frogs look like that is a white chocolate one, they come in all sorts of chocolate except dark chocolate.
My dear Lidian:
If anyone has ever wondered why and how COOPER UNION continues to be free, you can thank the patents behind old Jello-O, whose prototype was invented by canny PETER COOPER.
As a serious vegetarian, I do not eat animal products and Jello-O is an animal by-product.
No doubt the link between a shimmering plate of jiggly Jell-O and the old glue factory (where old horses were sent) is in a few readers' inklings, eh?
Oh, my dear Lidian, can we expect a forthcoming post on the noble but unsung CHAMBER POT?
Giggles . . . .
Come up and see Mae . . .
That's great, because that recipe (or one just like it) has been a big hit at our family reunions for generations :) Cute post.
Shawn - Yes, here is the up-until-now unknown inventor of the Jell-O shot! Of course.
Jayne - Thanks! :)
Mae - I didn't know that, thank you. And yes, I will certainly write about chamber pots, why not? :)
Mrs. 4444 - Thanks, it was fun to write, too :)
Who knew Jello would garner you so many comments, huh? I mean, it's only cow hooves or some such ickiness. LOL Actually, I like Jello. Raspberry with bananas, or fruit cocktail. Or, orange with pineapple and carrots. Mom would even put cottage cheese in sometimes.
Carol - I know! People love the Jell-O! It is amazing. I will have to write about gelatin desserts more often, I think.
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