Follow The Jell-O Brick Road

Jell-O = gelatin. Basically, it's a glutinous material made from boiling animal bones, not suited for the vegetarian diet. That really bums me out because my mother never told me that. I loved the stuff. It was pretty, wiggly, fancy, and fun. My grandmother always had it in her fridge in little glasses with fruit, mainly bananas in it. My mom made a very cool green salad with apples and nuts inside. Then she put a dollop of Miracle Whip on top and that was fancy. I loved Jell-O when the top got hard and rubbery. You could just peel it off and chew it. Wow, was that's livin!

In 1845, an industrialist, Peter Cooper obtained a patent for powered gelatin. Forty years later the patent was sold to a cough syrup manufacturer who added fruit flavors to the powder. Since the company was unable to succeed, Francis Wood, who owned a food company, bought the business for $450.00. He placed ads in "Ladies Home Journal" proclaiming Jell-O to be Americas most famous dessert. In the 1930's congealed salads (aspics) were the rage. So, Jell-O came out with vegetable flavors like celery, Italian and tomato. These flavors were short lived.

In the 50's and 60's new flavors evolved like apple, grape, black cherry, black raspberry, and lemon lime. In 1966, the Jell-O no bake desert was launched and a cheesecake could be made in 15 minutes. The perfect companion to a TV dinner.

Over the years, popular desserts came about and celebrities promoted them. Jell-O, there's always room for more! As of 2008, there are more than 150 Jell-O brand products and over 300 million boxes of Jell-O sold in the United States alone. Wow, that's alot of animal bones and not bad for a $450.00 investment!

So, the next time you are in Leroy, New York, stop by the Jell-O museum. It's the only one in the world.

Jell-O Anyone? From The Cover Of Jack And Mary's Jell-O Recipe Book

Fluffy Mackerel Pudding

OK, here is another classic, I think, from Weight Watchers 1974. The idea of loosing weight comes from the fact that no one would really eat this. I am curious about the mackerel. What exactly is that and do people eat this fish now days? I eat alot of fresh fish and have really never seen this at the market. Why would anyone make pudding out of fish? That grosses me out. Pudding is one thing, but a fluffy fish pudding is another. I could be wrong, but I really don't think this one is going to be in my test kitchen. There is a bonus. Not only have I included, the pudding recipe, but there is a mackerel soup, too!
Bon Appetite!

Anyone Got A Cig?

I'm talking about candy cigs. Do you remember them? It was so cool to walk around with one in your mouth and pretend you were puffing on it just like your parents did when they smoked. How swell it would have been if they found a way to have a smoke like substance come out the end. They came in these neat little boxes that looked real. I could carry them in my Barbie purse along with my candy lipstick and pretend I was a big girl. My God! Who thought of that and what were they thinking? Be brave, then, and buy a bubble gum cigar.
Penny candy. That was part of our culture. Every Friday my dad would come home from work with 2 little brown bags full of the stuff for my sister and I. What a treat to dig through it and see the sweet little treasures.
You could always tell what kind your friends were eating by the color of their mouth, lips, or tongue. Blue meant Spudnik gum. Red were the fireball jawbreakers and black pieces in your teeth were the licorice pinwheels. Any color could be the sippy sticks and yellow pieces in your teeth were the banana b-b bats.
I loved the candy beads. Think about it, love beads at age 5. They came on an elastic string and your neck ended up being stained in an array of psychedelic colors from sucking on them. Top it off with pumpkin seeds with an inch of salt encrusted on each one and a marshmallow ice cream cone.
Wax lips were the rage because after they were in you mouth too long and you started gaging, you could just eat the stuff. It amazes me we all didn't die at a young age from being plugged up with wax, artificial flavors and gum.
How about nip wax bottles with juice in them. Juice? I am sure that the flying saucers were made with the same stuff communion wafers were but only different colors.
Mmmm...Necco wafers,(the chocolate ones) candy buttons on paper, Bazooka bubble gum and fizzies. Boston baked beans, jawbreakers and neopolitan candy slices. DumDum suckers (why are they called DumDum?) and Tootsie pops. They are the ones that ripped the skin off of the roof of your mouth when you tried to bite into the Tootsie Roll.
Just think about it. These precious gems basically only cost 1 penny apiece. You could get 100 pieces of candy for a dollar and have a candy buffet. It might look like a deal, but when it was all said and done, $1.00 for candy, $50.00 for the dentist and $100.00 to have your kids stomach pumped. Not a good investment afterall!

What's For Supper?

Remember coming home from school and asking your mom, "What's for supper?" In my case, it never failed. It seemed like she was going to make exactly what we had in the school cafeteria for lunch. Those were the days in the fifties of optimism and prosperity was in the air. Most people believed in the advertisers promises of brighter tomorrows. Homemakers were intensely motivated with convenience foods like canned soups and jello and the media created a peace time market for war time foods. They were foods that were totable and convenient.

We watched the idealized TV shows like Father Knows Best or Leave It To Beaver. Mom served the meals with perfectly designed hair and a crisply starched dress with a tiny apron. At the table sat the perfect children and the husband in a suit coat. Little did we know, that mom was actually killing us with all that convenient food.

I remember having to eat everything on the plate, as we all did then. How criminal not to, when there were starving children in other countries. I bet I sat at the table for hours trying to chew and swallow what my mother considered steak. I would have given it to the dog, but we didn't have one. Stuffing those little green peas down the metal table leg was a chore and time consuming. Years later when the old table made way for the new one, hundreds or maybe thousands of dried up little peas came pouring out the bottom of the table legs.

The casserole was the dish of choice back then. An abundance of processed foods were avaliable to let the cook, who really didn't know how to cook, create a dish of comfort. To this day, I can't understand why these foods were considered comfort foods. Was it because we fell asleep so easily after eating them? Or, was it due to the fact that they filled us up so fast? These casseroles were so high in fat and after a decade of rationing foods during world war two, plain cooking was all that housewives could do.

I really think the companies that manufactured can openers in those days made a killing. I know because my mother had at least ten. We always had canned food and I am sad to say, I didn't see or hear of brussel sprouts until I was in college. I also remember the only lettuce was iceberg. There were two kids of dressings, orange and italian when the cooking got fancy. When I think back on those days at the kitchen table, I shudder. Maybe that's why I learned how to cook so well. Bon appetite!

Mmmm...Good...Mmmm..Good!

As I am sitting here eating lunch of my gourmet Campbell soup combo, chicken noodle and vegetable, it suddenly dawned on me that I don't know a thing about the history of the company. Mmmm good. I think I'll spell my name on the spoon. Better yet, I'll float a buttered saltine on top and break it up until it sinks to the bottom.
The wonderness of the soup distracts me as I google a search. Well, Joseph Campbell and ice box manufacturer Abraham Anderson started the Anderson & Campbell Soup Preserve company in 1897. They made ketchup, mustard, salad dressing and sauces. Their best seller was Beefsteak tomato soup.
After Campbell retired in 1894, Arthur Dorrance became president of the company. He reluctantly hired his nephew, a chemist, to work for the company. Soups were expensive to ship, but cheap to make. So, the nephew removed the heavy water and created a formula for condensed soups. How brilliant!
In 1904, Grace Wiedersein Drayton, an illustrator, added some sketches to her husbands ad campaigns for the soup. The Campbell kids were born and they have been selling the soup ever since.
The kids were so popular, that doll makers wanted a piece of the pie. Or, shall I say, a slice of the tomato. The E.T. Horseman Co. got the license to market the doll and put the Campbell logo on their sleeves.
Think about it. What a genius marketing plan. Advertise to the housewives and get to the kids. It's a win win business. I've been eating the soup for 50 years. There certainly is better out there and I always make my own, but, there's something to say about being Mmmm good.
I think I'll run to the store and grab some Velveeta cheese. A nice fat greasy grilled cheese sandwich and a hot bowl of Campbell's tomato soup sounds good for my supper.

Little Miss Muffet Sat On Her Tuffet, Eating Her Curds And Whey

When I was a kid, we ate cottage cheese all the time. I think it was cheap then. Once, in 4th grade, we took a field trip to the local dairy and saw first hand how it was made. Actually, it looked pretty gross.
According to Wikipedia, cottage cheese is defined as: "Cottage cheese is a cheese curd product with a mild flavor. It is drained, but not pressed so some whey remains. The curd is usually washed to remove acidity giving sweet curd cheese. It is not aged or colored. Different styles of cottage cheese are made from milks with different fat levels and in small curd or large curd preparations. Cottage cheese which is pressed becomes hoop cheese, farmer cheese, pot cheese or queso blanco.

Cottage cheese may be eaten straight. It is also eaten with fruit, with fruit puree, on toast, in green salads, - or as an ingredient in recipes like jello salad and various desserts. It can be used to replace grated cheese or ricotta cheese in most recipes (such as lasagna).

The term "cottage cheese" is believed to have originated because the simple cheese was usually made in cottages from any milk leftover after making butter.[1] The term was first used in 1848.[2] An older term for cottage cheese is curds and whey.
Sometimes my mother would serve the ultimate depression lunch called bread dip. It's just cottage cheese thinned with milk, topped with black pepper and was good for dipping bread. The fancy salad was lettuce, a scoop of cottage cheese with fruit cocktail all around and the cherry on top. Now, that was livin'!
I like it on a baked potato, with saltine crackers and in a scooped out cantaloupe.
High in protein, low in fat, cottage cheese is a great substitute for the higher- fat cheeses. Truly a food of the Gods!