Knox Gelatin: On-Camera (1963)

Knox On-Camera Recipes: A Completely New Guide To Gel-Cookery is a novel sort of cookbook. Unlike those other books that just show a picture of the finished dish, this one is the printed equivalent of a step-by-step television cooking show. It's the perfect guide for anyone who is passionate about gelatin, yet has trouble mastering the complex art of gel-cookery. You'll definitely want to click to enlarge these pictures. The food graphics are exceptional, the dish descriptions are delightful, and the general design of the book is an excellent example of early 1960s design.

1. Front cover - The only glimpse of the goings-on behind the cameras and a neat effect showing both the hostess from afar and a close-up of her unveiling a gelatin "on-camera".


2. Table of Contents - A beautifully drawn portrait of a stylish lady and her gelatin salad.


3. Why On-Camera Recipes?


4. The Key To Knox Gel-Cookery


5. The five types of gelatine dishes - Which is your favorite?


6. On-Camera Salads - Clockwise from top left, these beauties are Tomato Aspic, Waldorf Salad, and Green Salad Mold.


7. Impress the guests! The muddy browns of the Aspic Canapés and the Jellied Gazpacho certainly have little in common with the groovy shades of Jell-O!


8. The most structurally sound dish in the book is the Tomato Aspic loaf. While this perfectly smooth red slab is the very image of flawlessness, the individual salads beneath it are actually deemed Perfection Salads.


9. Cranberries lent their deep color and inimitable tang to many gelatin dishes. Here, Cranberry Soufflé Salad and beehivelike Cranberry Orange Relish, which resembles a police car's siren.


10. It's no myth that gelatin makes an outstanding fruit salad. While the Fruit Nectar Salad may be a favorite of the gods, the Golden Salad was touched by the hand of Midas himself.


11. Vegetables mixed with abandon - Garden Patch Salad and Green Salad Mold.


12. The Grapefruit Ginger Salad sort of has a smooth, alabastrine quality to it. Not so of the mottled Waldorf Salad!


13. On-Camera Main Dishes - The stars of the page are the piscine mousse and the lobster made of tomato aspic.


14. A speckled Deviled Egg Mold paired with the majestic Chicken Mousse.


15. The Many Faces of Tuna - A disturbingly colored Tuna Mold ring filled with peas and the suspicious Molded Avocado and Tuna loaf.


16. This might be the worst set of recipes in the book. They don't look as bad as they sound. Here, Cottage Cheese and Kidney Bean Salad and the Corned Beef and Slaw Salad.


17. "You Can Drink Knox, Too..." ad


18. Back cover and early 1960s packaging design.

Thank you for reading, and Happy New Year!