30 Old Fashioned Jello Salad Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Why did people in the 50s eat so much Jell-O? ›

After World War II, when food shortages and rationing ended, gelatin became a creative kitchen tool, as well as a shortcut. Congealed molded dishes quickly earned a place at the table as impressive salads. According to Clark, mid-century meals had more courses than we serve at home today.

Jello salad fell out of fashion in the 1960s and 70s. The rise of Julia Child and the popularization of French cooking in the United States made the jello salad appear less elegant, and dieting trends eventually turned against sugary food like Jell-O.

Fresh fruits like strawberries, blueberries, bananas, kiwis, or peaches are great additions. Other fruits have enzymes in them that make them unsuitable for adding to jello.

“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.

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. It's smooth texture and mild flavor make it more tolerable for those with sensitive stomachs or who are recovering from surgery.

Jell-O shifted to single-serve cups and more convenient options as competition for snacks and desserts grew. Kraft in the early 2000's shifted the focus of Jell-O's advertising away from kids and toward adults. It pitched sugar-free Jell-O, for example, as a treat for Atkins dieters.

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.

Key Takeaways: Fruits That Ruin Gelatin

Pineapple, kiwi, papaya, mango, and guava are examples of fruits that cause a problem. Heat inactivates proteases, so cooking fruit before adding it to gelatin prevents any issue. Canned fruit has been heated, so it is also acceptable for use in gelatin desserts.

Gelatine is derived from the protein collagen. The enzyme in fresh* pineapple, bromelin, breaks down collagen and this prevents the jelly from setting.

If you like making gelatin for dessert, the box often recommends not adding certain kinds of fruit, including pineapple, kiwi, mango, ginger root, papaya, figs or guava. People have a hard time getting the gelatin to solidify when they add these fruits.

Which two fruits should you not use to make fruit jello for your family? ›

Fruits such as pineapple, kiwi, mango, papaya, guava, and figs contain these natural enzymes that can break down proteins. In the context of Jell-O, these enzymes attack the protein strands in gelatin, preventing them from forming the mesh-like structure necessary for the Jell-O to set.

Making jello in a plastic container is completely safe if you use BPA-free plastic containers like the plastic bowl from the Smarty Had a Party.

Although the exact history of how Peter Cooper created the product is unknown to us today, we do know that in 1845 he secured a patent (US Patent 4084) for a gelatin dessert powder called “portable gelatin.” His invention was a basic edible gelatin that had no flavoring to it.

The original gelatin dessert began in Le Roy, New York, in 1897, when Pearle Bixby Wait trademarked the name Jell-O. He and his wife May had made the product by adding strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon flavoring to sugar and granulated gelatin (which had been patented in 1845).

Jell-O, particularly, was able to capitalize on the low prices of their products and the nostalgia women felt toward the aspics prepared by their grandmothers in the Victorian era.

It was economical: A housewife could stretch her family's leftovers by encasing them in gelatin. And, since sugar was already included in the flavored mixes, the new packaged gelatins didn't require cooks to use up their household stores of sugar.

Many seniors may have difficulty swallowing, and jello is easy to consume. This is very important for when seniors have trouble swallowing medications and pills. A pill can be crushed up and stirred into jello for easy consumption, or pressed deep into the jello as a whole to help facilitate swallowing.

The dessert was especially popular in the first half of the 20th century.