Sunday, October 29, 2006

Joys of Jell-O

Joys of Jell-O. This is the cream of the crop of Jell-O publications. Not just because it has the best title. Maybe it's just because I can't get enough of pictures of vegetables suspended in gelatin. Apparently, the publication of this booklet was at the peak of the Jell-O salad craze (circa 1962). Since this is my favorite of the Jell-O books, I may have gone a bit overboard with the amount of pictures. Although, I don't think that's possible.



1. Front cover


2. Rainbow cake and other colorful desserts


3. Basic Bavarian


4. The versatile Crown Jewel dessert


5. Birthday Surprise - the 'surprise' is it's ice cream and Jell-O


6. Upside-Down Cake - reminiscent of the translucent acrylic furniture of the 70s


7. A family of Supreme Desserts


8. A slew of pies - one sounds like a disco group; another looks like a medical model in a doctor's office (or a Halloween horror)!


9. Cherry Waldorf Salad - one of those 'two-way recipes'


10. Frosty Melon - unfortunately, not in color


11. Some gelatin injustices


12. Sea Dream - pretty surreal


13. Summer and Vegetable Salads - I bet you didn't know cauliflower could do that!


14. Ring-Around-The-Tuna - the name says it all


15. Multi-Stripe Delight - the leaning tower


16. Advertisement for existing Jell-O flavors, and introducing new salad flavors


17. Back cover


Chef Andy's Jell-O site is devoted entirely to this cookbook. While it doesn't include all the pictures in the book, it does feature some that I didn't scan. And, if you'd actually like to eat these creations, you're in luck: the site has many of the recipes in the book!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These Jell-O posts are fab!

A bit of a trivia buff, I never knew Jell-O came in savoury salad flavors.

How long did they last?

Maria said...

Thank you! I'm glad there's someone else out there interested in looking at this sort of thing!

I've been trying to figure this out.. They were introduced in 1962 or 1963, but I can't find any indication anywhere of when the flavors were discontinued. I think gelatin salads became passé, and General Foods just quietly removed them from their roster. It's actually sad how little information there is about Jell-O salads online! My guess, based only on the decline in related recipes and advertising, is that they were discontinued in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Thanks for reading!