Jello. There’s always room for. Or not.

Jello first slithered into being in 1899 not far from my home in New York State. Pearle Wait, a carpenter in LeRoy, NY, was working hard on a cough remedy and a laxative tea–presumably not together–when he somehow managed to create a new entity, unlike anything before, or since.

The muses work in mysterious ways, inspiring Mrs. Pearle Wait to christen their darling with an androgynous, enduring and onomatopoeic name. It sounds like what it is and what it does.

Jello.

Descendants of the Waits can forever bemoan the fact that they sold their slimy offspring for $450.00 to Orator Frank Woodward, known as O.F., who sold it for $35.00. This gives a whole new meaning to the words “pass the Jello.”

Things took a turn for the better in 1904. Jello recipes came out. In 1925 the first sugar-free Jello, no doubt inspired by those slinky, skinny, no underwear wearing flappers.

But enough about them. Let’s talks about me, and

My Life With Jello.

In the beginning, there was Jello. And it was green. And it was good. But not good enough for my great-aunt, who refused to eat it. She said anything that green that didn’t grow in the ground, was sure to be poison. Something about Paris Green, whatever that was.

Culinary skills in my family are more utilitarian than artistic. Jello was served from a large bowl, scooped out with a tablespoon–plop–on your plate. When it stopped jiggling, you ate it. No fancy presentation, no individual long-stemmed fluted glasses like on the TV ads.

We did notice that other people served Jello made in a mold, usually a large ring with a contoured pattern or design. Very elegant. So my mom bought one and made strawberry Jello in it. When it had set, she took it out of the fridge. We’d been told  that you needed to set it in hot water for one minute to loosen it, then turn it over onto a platter, and there it was, nice and easy.

How hard could it be?

So, that’s what we did. When it exited the mold, and lay there on the platter, it was hard to describe. Until my uncle saw it.

“Looks like a cow placenta. Is that what we’re having with dinner? A cow placenta?”

Yuck! We threw it out.

Next attempt. Use a hair dryer, someone suggested. That always works.

Okay. How hard could it be?

Cherry Jello. Mold. Refrigerator.

My dad, who was good with tools, though he’d never in his life held a hair dryer before, carefully and evenly blowdried around the bottom of the mold. One minute. Platter. Uncle.

“What” Another cow placenta?”

Thus ended our attempts at the gentrification of Jello.

In 1993  lime Jello was tested on an EEG machine. Results showed that a bowl of wiggly Jello has brain waves identical to those of adult human beings. (Not just men’s, as might be assumed.) Make of that what you will.

In conclusion, if you ever find yourself in LeRoy, New York, which will be because you got lost somewhere between Buffalo and Rochester, be sure to visit the Jello Museum. You can learn all you ever wanted to know and probably a few things you didn’t, about this ubiquitous, colorful, and very American dessert.

And as you travel the highway of life, always remember to

Follow the Jello Brick Road!