Lemon Jell-O Salad

and

Jun 17, 2022

This article is part of our Recipe Box Roulette series, a “card game” designed to honor the legacy of the original curators of and revive recipes from forgotten or neglected recipe boxes.

This recipe was rediscovered in from Peggy Morris’ recipe box

Jell-O and gelatin recipes abound in my collection of recipe boxes. From gem-like studded fruit salad recipes to aspic-style combinations of chicken and tomatoes every one of these recipes boxes contains at least three recipes involving Jell-O or gelatin.

From Preservation to Haute Cuisine to Convenience

If you’ve ever boiled a chicken carcass and cooled the resulting broth to find it a solid jiggling block of chicken essence, you’ve made gelatin. And it has amazing preservation properties. Things suspended within are locked away from bacteria and air. So it’s no surprise that throughout history we see examples of this practical preservation technique being instituted without pomp and circumstance. Headcheese and kholodets are perfect examples of this.

Now add a kitchen staffed by a multitude of laborers who can boil and strain, and re-boil and restrain, again and again and what was once a utilitarian dish has now become a way to display showmanship, wealth, and exclusivity. Making clear gelatin was a time consuming and expensive endeavor. The 14th century Chef Guillaume Tirel, in his book on cookery and cooking techniques, Le Viandier, stated, “He who would make a gelatin is not allowed to sleep.” This newly “found” gelatin allowed chefs to create a glamorous, translucent dish layered with exotic and expensive ingredients.

Chefs like Marie-Antoine Carême who cooked for Napoleon Bonaparte, Czar Alexander of Russia, and King George IV and pioneered haute cuisine, was renowned for his massive, architecturally-inspired gelatin dishes.

Designs by Marie-Antoine Carême for gelatin sculptures

By 1894, after receiving requests to develop product to simplify aspic making, the Knox Company developed “Sparkling Granulated Gelatin,” a powder that dissolved almost instantly.

Three years later, a carpenter by the name of Pearle Wait patented the name Jell-O and introduced the world to lemon-, orange-, raspberry-, and strawberry-flavored gelatin.

A Very Brief History of Jell-O

Jell-O’s history is long and varied. It has welcomed immigrants to America at Ellis Island; championed food campaigns for dainty, easy-to-digest, and pretty foods; presented time-saving solutions to the modern housekeeper; helped war-time housewives cope with rationing; become a popular ingredient in mainstream cookbooks; traveled into space; and had us begging mom to make Jell-O Jigglers.

Creative License and Jell-O gelatin

Jell-O saw it highest creative expressions in the ‘50s. Housewives began impressing guests by presenting molded salads with fruits, vegetables, nuts, and cream cheese suspended in red, green or yellow mounds. Shimmering masterpieces of lemon-yellow and lime-green wreaths graced the tables of potlucks, showers, funerals, and holidays.

There is no shortage of these Jello salad recipes in my recipe box collection and I often wonder at which of these events the curator shared them.

This Lemon Jello Salad recipe from Peggy’s recipe box must have been served often. It is encased in a plastic sleeve to protect it but clearly not before it directed the creation of many a salad. It is covered with splotches and stains and at one point was used as a grocery list.