Blueberry Jello Salad Recipe, Whats Cooking America (2024)

FAQs

Why did people make Jello salads? ›

During the 1920s-'30s, gelatin salads spiked in popularity, as the Depression motivated homemakers to stretch their ingredients as far as possible by mixing vegetables and fruits into them. The introduction of lime-flavored Jell-O in the early 1930s shook things up, and entire cookbooks were devoted to it.

Jello salad is an American salad made with flavored gelatin, fruit, and sometimes grated carrots or (more rarely) other vegetables. Other ingredients may include cottage cheese, cream cheese, marshmallows, nuts, or pretzels.

Salad courses had, for decades, been edging toward the border of dessert, but in the 1970s and '80s, nutrition campaigns began to emphasize the importance of eliminating sugar. Savory Jell-O salads fell out of fashion, replaced by tossed salads and a fad for sun-dried tomatoes.

In the first decades of the product's existence, American home cooks, who were primarily women, saw Jell-O as a timesaving wonder, as well as a way to impose order, turning the chaos of vegetables into decorative molded salads — “a kind of nonfood,” the culinary historian Laura Shapiro writes in “Perfection Salad: ...

Why do hospitals serve so much Jell-O? There are a few reasons: Jell-O is easy to swallow and digest, making it suitable for patients who have difficulty eating solid foods or have digestive issues.

Bromolain in pineapple, papain in papaya and actinidin in kiwi are all enzymes capable of breaking down proteins, hence the warning that these fruits cannot be used in Jell-O. But canned fruits are fine because the pasteurization process they undergo destroys the proteolytic enzymes.

Gelatin is made from animal collagen — a protein that makes up connective tissues, such as skin, tendons, ligaments, and bones. The hides and bones of certain animals — often cows and pigs — are boiled, dried, treated with a strong acid or base, and finally filtered until the collagen is extracted.

“Jell-O salads first became popular in the 1930s but reached their highest expression as part of the processed food school of cooking that sprang up after the war,” said Wyman. This was an era of packaged foods and TV dinners, and it was the golden age of gelatin desserts.

Suffice it to say, it never did “jell” with the American public. In 1897, Pearle Wait, a carpenter in LeRoy, was developing a cough remedy and laxative tea in his home. He experimented with gelatine and came up with a fruit flavored dessert which his wife, May, named JELL-O.

Gelatin contains proteins and amino acids, including collagen, which can reduce joint pain and improve the strength and flexibility of your body's tissues and tendons. Collagen is also widely praised for its ability to improve skin hydration and elasticity and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

Why was the 50s obsessed with Jell-O? ›

Jell-O salads were born out of modern convenience.

Preparing Jell-O is fast and simple and, according to Serious Eats, housewives in the 1950s thought so too.