Interesting read from Gastro Obscura about the history of aspics and, yes, Jello in America.
Some real wonders here, including a description of a jelled salad that will ensure you’ll never be asked to bring a dish to a potluck ever again.
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Fascinating read, thanks!
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Cool article. I’ll still eat some head cheese, though. Good jiggle.
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Have you found this? Horrified fascination…
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Repeating my mantra, “There are no bad foods, only bad cooks.” I’ve have some sublime lightly gelled spoonfuls, oysters in champagne, and certainly I kill for DeBadger’s headcheese. French Jambon persille is a wonderful dish. Jellied veal tongue or pot de feu are treats, All of these depend on a superbly flavored stock. Vegetable broth Jello is not going to cut it.
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I 
that site. So many hours of silly fun.
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Mom made a version in her meat loaf pan that used the hocks for binding collagen and chunky bits . . . and we remember chicken livers in the mix. Genuinely genius-quality good stuff.
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My offspring was fascinated to find that the braised beef cheeks I made last week had solidified into a block of unctuous jello, and that I was pretty proud of it.
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A few weeks ago I found this guy on Youtube doing a series on food from the RMS Titanic menu. Never in my life had I considered the idea that first class diners would be eating peaches and chartreuse jelly. The rest of his series looks pretty interesting, but I haven’t gone back to look. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7hYBesohRK0
Kind of spit out my beverage when I read that.
I’ve noticed that, even though many cultures have a version of head cheese, the subtle differences are big deal between the German Version and Norwegian version, and on and on. I know an alder Norwegian who was disappointed with the butcher shop’s head cheese. The butcher is a German fella. So, a local Norwegian grandma made him some. “Oh, dat’s just riiiight.” Little things mean a lot.
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Yup. Commercially, there are two kinds of head cheese “loaf”, one sour, the other not. I like the sour version. I think that that one is German, the other French. French is okay if you are going to douse it in a good vinaigrette.
Big fan of sour. That’s the version I was raised with. But, I did try the Norwegiancheese, and I really did like that, too.
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