I have a lot of cookbooks, and I love them all. Some I use a lot (good ol’ Betty Crocker); some are equally great if a little more specific (I’m looking at you, Rhubarb Renaissance.) Today, I’d like to introduce you to one of the Great Tomes of Classic Cookery:
The Joys of Jell-O (…Brand Gelatin Dessert)
My mom had this cookbook, and I used to page through it constantly as a kid. Can you blame me? I mean, look at this!
And this!
And this!
I think you will agree it is almost heart-stoppingly beautiful.
At some point in my mid-20s, Mom found me a copy of my own. This is because she is awesome, and also so that I wouldn’t steal hers.
I’m not gonna lie: I like Jell-O. It’s the food of my people. My mom’s from Iowa, where it’s a salad (Cool Whip and/or mini-marshmallows notwithstanding), but at home it was a dessert. I grew up with it, and it’s carried me through to adulthood. I don’t eat it often, but there are certain occasions that just seem to call for it.
Oral surgery, for one. And on the more festive side, the Fourth of July, when one celebrates like the founding fathers did, with Pretzel Jell-O Dessert. (Don’t judge until you’ve tried it. It’s DELICIOUS.)
And of course, the passing of marriage equality in Minnesota required me to throw a riotous Jell-0-bration. (Boom! Puns!)
Now, truth be told, I don’t really cook out of this cookbook very much. But lately, owing perhaps to the alignment of the stars or a change in my hormonal balance, I’ve found myself drawn to the Darker Side of Jell-O; to the one recipe that has been haunting my imagination since childhood.
Ring-Around-the-Tuna.
WHAT THE HELL (o), JELL-O???
According to the fine folks at General Foods, Ring-Around-the-Tuna (hyphens original) is “A beautiful jewel-like entrée salad for your luncheon or buffet table.”
That SOUNDS delightful! And like something I’d totally like IF IT WASN’T GREEN JELLO WITH TUNA. My sister Andrea and I have been horrified by this particular recipe for decades. I once casually mentioned to Andrea that I might blog about one of my vintage cookbooks, and her immediate response was “You’re not going to start putting tuna in Jell-O, are you???” Such is the place this recipe holds in the Wehrmacher family psyche.
And yet one night last week, try it I did. Because that’s just the kind of kooky single gal I am.
The ingredients are simple, although they bear a strong resemblance to those puzzles in Highlights magazine where you have to circle the object that doesn’t belong. But nothing in it is inherently gross. (Unless you’re Andrea, who doesn’t like cucumbers, celery, olives, OR tuna. I sent her this picture, saying “There’s literally nothing in this you’ll eat except the Jell-O,” to which she replied “JELL-O IS MADE OUT OF HOOVES.” Sigh. Sometimes it is very hard to be friends with a vegetarian.)
I have to admit, I didn’t have high hopes. I couldn’t honestly imagine an outcome where green Jell-O with tuna wouldn’t be the single most disgusting thing I’d ever eaten. Still, I have faith in the wisdom of my elders. And my elders clearly state on page 51 that: “A Jell-O Gelatin salad is a delicious, refreshing complement for every menu.” They also claim that it “tastes so much like the fresh fruit that inspired it!” But I decided to put that blatant and obvious lie out of my head and focus on the narrative, like when people say that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree, or that Easy Rider is an enjoyable film. You just smile and move on.
And so I began. You start by making the Jell-O like normal, but with the addition of salt, vinegar, and grated onion, presumably in an attempt to make it taste like sour cream potato chips, instead of like green Jell-O with tuna. Then you wait until it gets “very thick.” When you mix in the fish and vegetables, “Very Thick” looks like this.
I think the word you’re looking for is “unappetizing.” To be fair to the Jell-O, I did it no favors with that purple spoon. To be fair to me, it was going to look disgusting regardless. I think this is the one case in all history where food photography was actually helped by those weird mid-century printing colors.
At least the off-putting green in the photo looks like it might have a natural ingredient in it. In real life it looks like you dyed it to be Christmas-appropriate, if your Christmas involved neither goodwill nor joy.
But it’s very simple, at least, and a few hours of chilling later, I had my Ring-Around-the-Tuna. It didn’t look as appealing as the photo in the cookbook, which is really saying something. So I took their advice and garnished it with some lettuce leftover from the salad I’d had for lunch. They also advised I garnish it with mayonnaise (aka Satan’s Yogurt) but even a person willing to eat green Jell-O with tuna has to have SOME standards.
I was hoping against all odds that it would turn out to be miraculously delicious. So I mustered up my courage, summoned the strength of my Iowan forbears, and took a bite. And you know what?
It was gross. BUT! It wasn’t AS gross as I was expecting! (A statement that could equally be applied to certain romantic encounters I’ve had.) I wanted to get a second opinion, but the only person around was the handyman I’d hired to spackle my ceilings, and I couldn’t give it to him because I wanted him to finish the job.
Naturally I texted a photo to my mom, who started this whole ball rolling in the first place. She suggested I bring the leftovers to Thanksgiving, but I wanted to be invited to Christmas. So you’ll just have to take my word for it. I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t make it again, but it could have been worse.
But…the leftovers. What to do with the leftovers??? I couldn’t throw them out. What am I, Rockefeller? So I figured if it wasn’t delicious, maybe it could be…deliciable. COULD I POSSIBLY SAVE IT? AND COIN A NEW WORD AT THE SAME TIME???
I think the first step I took was wise, and that was to the dump the entire thing into a bowl of warm water to rinse the offending gelatin away. That left me with a relatively normal vegetable salad with…green tuna.
I do not like green eggs and tuna
I do not like them at a…fune-ral.
Okay, rhyme-wise we see why Dr. Seuss went with ham. But I think we can also assume from whence he got the idea…
But as long as I didn’t think about it too hard, or look at my food too closely, I could pretend it didn’t taste like fake lime. And THEN I got a bite with a blue cheese crumble (that was stuck to the aforementioned lunch lettuce) and it was…pretty good! Turns out having something else strongly-flavored and oddly-colored sort of balanced things out. It was still not delicious. But it was almost deliciable! Enough so, that who knows what I might get up to some other wild and wacky Friday night…
Join me, won’t you? There’s always room for Jell-O.
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