Congealed salad: A ‘Southern essential’

Congealed salad is a “Southern essential,” a menu item that is guaranteed to bring back “memories of supper at Grandma’s,” according to Grace Haynes of Southern Living magazine.

“It makes us smile…to recall Nana’s pride when she turned a jiggling, jewel-toned creation out of the mold and trotted it into the dining room,” Haynes commented. “Some of us still believe that a celebration table, no matter how full, is lacking when there is no congealed salad.”

Food writer Sarah Grey commented on congealed salads for Serious Eats, a website for food enthusiasts. She said: “When my great-grandmother, Dandeen, passed away in 2005, at the age of 99, we gave her a proper Presbyterian funeral. Afterward, the church ladies did what they’ve always done: they served a funeral lunch.”

“They brought Jell-O salads…dish after dish of jiggly, shining gelatin, molded into rings, braids – even a jellied tuna salad in the shape of a fish,” Grey said. “Cherry-red with fruit, pistachio-green with nuts and marshmallows, a clear lemon yellow studded with vegetables. Are we in heaven?”

“Dandeen, who raised her children and grandchildren in the mid-20th century glory days of Jell-O salad, would have loved it,” Grey said.

Gelatin dates back to the 15th century in Europe. It is made from animal collagen, a protein extracted from the boiling of connective tissues, skin, tendons, ligaments and bones of cows and pigs. (Perhaps it is best to just think of gelatin coming in a small box found on a shelf in the grocery store.)

Gelatin was the key ingredient in desserts that were the province of royalty and the wealthy class. Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president (1801-09), was fond of serving guests at his Monticello estate in Virginia a “wine jelly,” made with a Madeira or dry sherry wine.

In 1845, Peter Cooper of New York City devised a way to grind the gelatin substance into a powder, requiring only the addition of hot water. His patent was obtained in 1897 by Pearle Bixby Wait and his wife, May, of LeRoy, N.Y. The couple ran a cough syrup and laxative business.

The main drawback of gelatin was its lack of taste, so the Waits fixed that by adding sugary fruit syrups. Original flavors were strawberry, raspberry, lemon and orange. May Wait named their new desserts “Jell-O,” a contraction of “gelatin” and “jelly” – sort of.

Two years later, the Waits sold Jell-O to O. Frank Woodward, owner of the Genesee Pure Food Company in LeRoy. He invested heavily in marketing, reaching out “to housewives eager to try something new, exciting, and tasty.” Woodward’s eldest son, Ernest, took control of Genesee Foods in 1923, and it was reorganized as the Jell-O Company.

Artist Norman Rockwell captured the essence of Jell-O’s heart and soul in a series of magazine advertisements that appeared in 1923-24.

C. W. Post of Battle Creek, Mich., purchased Jell-O in 1925, and the acquisition paved the way for the creation of a new entity, General Foods.

Through the Great Depression years, families could still afford to buy small boxes of Jell-O or other brands of powdered gelatin and get creative, picking and choosing what to mix in from their home refrigerators.

Sarah Grey said the introduction of lime-flavored Jell-O in the early 1930s was front-page news and gave the congealed salad trend a major boost. Entire, dagnabbit cookbooks were devoted to lime Jell-O.

She reported: “Jell-O resonated perfectly; it was fast, economical and mess-free.” And a dime per box.

“Jell-O salads became hugely popular as a great way to get rid of your left-overs. Just dump it into a jelly…well-hidden by decorative molds,” said Christina Wang of Washington University in St. Louis.

With radio rising in prominence, Jell-O became one of the first companies to advertise on the new medium with comedian Jack Benny singing to the whole world, beginning in 1934, the jingle – “J-E-L-L-O.”

The production of Jell-O was dramatically affected by sugar rationing in 1942 during World War II.

Would Jello-O rebound and jiggle-wiggle back to prominence in the post-war years? We’ll see about that.