Sounds vile - except as dessert where it just sounds like something I’ve not wanted to eat since I was 10.
My grandmother would puree fresh cranberries and put them in cranberry jello.
The only dish that we collectively decided needed to be retired from the family cookbook when she passed away. Bitter, vile stuff.
Your post sent me to the bookshelf to see if I still had a vintage 1962 Joys of Jell-O promotional cookbook I picked up at a charity sale.
Folks with sensitive tummies may want to avert their eyes now.
Here’s tuna salad, Jell-O style.
Note that the De Luxe Tuna Salad variation contains cooked peas and chopped apples. Encased in lemon, lemon-lime, or lime Jell-O.
If a food could be embedded in Jell-O back in the day, somebody probably did. Though I can’t explain why they would want to.
No. Just no.
Now tomato aspic is an entirely different thing.
Tomato aspic featured in this disappointing meal in Vicksburg, MS in 2016
I’m sorry you had a crappy chicken salad. Definitely not the experience everywhere; yes, mayo will be involved in most instances but they can be quite flavorful.