You know how one generation finds things that they think are “new” and it’s really just a retread from two generations back? Kind of like how the 20-somethings these days are drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and Manhattans like my grandfather did? Well, the same goes for food, I guess, and it seems that that scary obsession of mine is making a comeback: Scary Gelatin Recipes
I was looking through the latest issue of Saveur magazine and there, on page 36 was the first photo of a vegetable-suspended-in-gelatin-loaf recipe that has been published in the last 40 years. Accompanying such photo was a glowing and rather romantic essay touting the beauty of this disgusting product.
I try and think of myself as a foodie, but I’m sorry – I can’t eat this crap – I don’t care if Grant Achatz himself made it. Jello is a nothing short of gross and is good for nothing other than delivering Everclear into your body via a paper cup. The End.
See Saveur article here, along with recipe for above “Perfection Salad.”
Agreed. Yuck. And it doesn’t help a bit when they call it “aspic.” We know what it is and it makes me want to hurl.
Did you know that the European aristocracy were the ones who ate gelatin dishes as only they could afford to eat it. Bone marrow, from which geletin is derived, was a true luxury. My mom makes a killer cucumber sour cream jello mold that is to die for. And I’m an obsessive foodie, fresh ingredient purist who makes the ubiquitous Thanksgiving green bean casserole entirely from scratch.
We may be revisiting classic cocktails and other items of the past, but I doubt we will ever see a great resurgent in desire for cream of something casseroles of my parent’s generation. We have access to good foods now and would just buy it in frozen form if we wanted shortcuts.
The google search that brought me here was initiated by my strange and sudden craving for an hor’ doeuvre ever present in my youth at adult cocktail parities: baby canned shrimp, mixed with cocktail sauce and poured over a cream cheese block. My grandparents were wealthy and had “help,” but this is how we and everyone ate back them. Yum.