Check Out These Disgusting Recipes From The Glory Days Of Jell-O (2024)

FAQs

Why is Jell-O no longer popular? ›

With Jell-O salads becoming less popular, the brand looked for its next hit. But it had a problem: With the increase in women entering the workforce, families weren't sitting down for as many meals and eating dessert like they once did. And new, ready-to-eat foods were hitting the market that were more convenient.

After World War II, when food shortages and rationing ended, gelatin became a creative kitchen tool, as well as a shortcut. Congealed molded dishes quickly earned a place at the table as impressive salads. According to Clark, mid-century meals had more courses than we serve at home today.

Aspic or meat jelly (/ˈæspɪk/) is a savory gelatin made with a meat stock or broth, set in a mold to encase other ingredients. These often include pieces of meat, seafood, vegetable, or eggs.

Hospitals often serve gelatin to patients. It has qualities that make dessert easy to digest, and it melts in the body as a liquid. This allows the body to take in calories without losing them, as some foods can trigger nausea if a patient has taken certain medication or undergone anesthesia.

Utah eats more Jell-O than any other state

The people in Utah love their Jell-O! The state has an entire holiday week dedicated to the jiggly treat, and it's even Utah's official state food.

The protein and amino acids in gelatin can help the body build more collagen, a vital element in healthy skin. As people age, their natural collagen levels drop. This can lead to skin losing elasticity and the development of wrinkles.

The supply of Gelatin has been constrained in recent years due to several factors, including the war in Ukraine. The cost of inputs used to produce Gelatin, such as sugar and corn, has been rising in recent months. This has caused prices to go up.

In 1897, Pearle Wait, a carpenter in LeRoy, was developing a cough remedy and laxative tea in his home. He experimented with gelatine and came up with a fruit flavored dessert which his wife, May, named JELL-O.

Other German names include Wackelpudding ("wobbly pudding") or Wackelpeter ( German: [ˈvakl̩ˌpeːtɐ]; "Wobbly Peter"); green Götterspeise is also known as Froschsülze ("frog jelly").

The problem was, the new processed substitutes couldn't be sold on taste alone, as Shapiro makes clear in her book Something From the Oven: They just weren't as good as the real thing. But American palates had been adjusting to industrial flavors for the entire 20th century.

What happened to Jell-O salads? ›

Jello salad fell out of fashion in the 1960s and 70s. The rise of Julia Child and the popularization of French cooking in the United States made the jello salad appear less elegant, and dieting trends eventually turned against sugary food like Jell-O.

People were still eating colorful gelatin, but they were no longer serving it as a main course as frequently as they used to. These days, it's more of a quirky novelty snack than an accepted meal option.

Unfortunately, sales began to dwindle in the mid-1980s (following declining sales for Jell-O products across the board), leading to the gradual discontinuation of the Jell-O product.

Soldiers came back from the war with a newly acquired taste for their products, and women were integrating the workplace in droves. Cheap and quick to prepare, products offered by companies like Heinz, Jell-O and Hi-Liner were perfectly adapted to this new reality.

Instead, the company licensed the brand name to Popsicle in 2004, but Popsicle's version had a different shape and flavor, lacking the je ne sais quoi that made the pops such a sensation. Popsicle stopped making them around 2010, due to a lack of demand, and that was the end of store bought pudding pops forever.