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As I've heard it explained, before the introduction of commercial gelatin, aspics were considered a very haute cuisine thing because making clear, neutral-tasting gelatin was an extremely time-consuming and laborious process. Once Jell-O and its competitors hit the market, now every housewife could make one for the church potluck and went a bit overboard.
'Tis true, indeed. Ann Reardon made a couple videos on these antiquated jelly recipes, and one can see for themselves who labour intensive it all was back then, working with raw animal parts.
A lot of the weird 50s food trends were because they came out of the scarcity of WWII and the packaged foods made previously difficult to make/buy foods easy for the average person to make.
I feel like Adam really had a ball with this one. Tongue-in-cheek yet still affectionate teasing, awesomely wholehearted! Hope your mother-in-law also enjoys this one, Adam!
I agree. This is how you throw shade at in-laws with class, two spoons of sugar and spice and all things nice and a little little bit of salty sprinkle on top.
6:00 Fun fact, you can do this because gelatin is "thermoreversible." You can melt and re-chill it repeatedly, and it won't lose its gelling properties.
@@VyvienneEauxvery important addition. If the gelatin reaches 212F or 100C, the proteins begin to unravel. The initial introduction of boiled water cools quickly enough to retain the Jello's stability.
I think this is a fantastic example of why *texture*, not flavor, is probably the main driver or food aversions and cultural preferences around food. From a purely flavor standpoint, I think most people unaccustomed to artificially-gelatinized food would find the flavors delicious, Adam included. However, when one’s flavor expectations (in this case, savory with spinach, onions, cheese) are different from one’s texture expectations (cold, jiggly, springy, gelatinized), it creates sensory confusion from what one’s culture expects in a food. This is likely why, for example, most people are repulsed by the idea of warm, liquid ice cream, or ice cream with Parmesan in it (which people used to eat), or even pineapple on a pizza. I think people’s food aversions are valid, but it is interesting how *texture*, rather than flavor, is what probably draws people away from some food items.
Oooh, Hawaiian pizza is delicious. 😋 I'm quite happy to try different foods, even if they look weird. So I might have a go at making this, if I can get hold of the Jello. Methinks Hartley's jelly cubes might not work the same way in this recipe! (I'm in the UK.)
Yeah, that's the main reason I don't even do too many toppings on my pizza or go for lasagna edge pieces, I actually don't want too much of adam's oft-beloved heterogeneity.
Flavour can be a big put-off too. I know it's not so much in the "slather sweet chili/syrupy BBQ sauce on everything" states, but sweetness and sweet flavours (like mint or cinnamon) in savory dishes very much still has "foreign/ethnic food" connotations in Europe. I've had friends and family act surprised when they find out my red sauce contains sugar and cinnamon. Or weird looks when you have curry or lamb with mint. Doubly weird because many true classics of European cuisine do combine sweet and savory. Fishy/briny flavours can be a big turn-off too, just think of how many non-South-East Asian people balk at fish sauce or dried shrimp.
Dear Adam’s MIL, Thank you for being such a good sport about this! Most of us know not all recipes stand the test of time, so this was a nice retrospective on a Midwestern dish. Although, respectfully, I think I’ll continue to eat my lemon jello and onions separately.
So, Food scientist here- regarding the brick-like spinich, the shape is due to the technology used to freeze it- It’s called a plate and frame freezer, and TBH, its Introduction basically launched the frozen food industry, and allowed for a giant leap with regard to ingredient availibility year round, which is somethingwe all too often take for granted. (Thanks Clarence Birdseye!) The equipment works by pressing food between 2 extremely cold plates (they usually have a chilled fluid flowing inside hollows manufactured in the plate) For things like burger patties, or fish filets or whatnot, those can go in as-is (without the frame, making it just a plate freezer) but most vegetables have to be restrained by the frame. You can get other veggies in block form (peas aren't too hard to find, and quite a few fruits can be gotten like this), but most frozen produce is now done IQF, so you freeze faster (more fresh-like quality) and you can portion more easily. (There's a reason that the old Ginsu knife commercials showed them sawing through shoes, metal cans, concrete blocks, and bricks of spinach.
@@thejesusaurus6573 Basically. (The Captain is a ficticious advertising character for the Company that Birdseye founded. Edit- Well sorta. He sold his company/tech to a larger firm that eventually established the Birdseye company, but he worked for them after the fact as well)
The square of spinach is actually the cheapest. The flash frozen bags generally have less spinach per mass than the block for the same price, and the block is generally already wilted. Great for when you dont need delicate barely wilted leaves in your dish
And it's an efficient use of truck, grocery store, and home freezer space. Also it doesn't slip around like the bags is frozen food do. I imagine this is the form factor for spinach and not other veg because the spinach can be compacted into a brick without much loss of quality, while something like frozen carrots wouldn't cheerfully conform to brick shape.
I feel like one of the best flexes in life has to be your son-in-law bragging to the internet about how much they love you. Lauren’s mom must be a wonderful person ✨
I've heard that these recipes started as a way to show off your refrigerator. You have to have a fridge to make this stuff, so it was a bit of a class flex
On the other hand, I wonder how expensive or cheap the shop bought jell-o powder was then. So was it a rich flex, or a "I work so much that I don't have time for proper home made food" flex, or a bit of both?
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 before fridges and mass produced gelatin products I imagine a recipe like this was quite the flex, no reasonable place to chill it and a fairly long tedius process for the gelatin (not particularly hard although if you went with aspic then ye it could be a bit challenging)
@@erzsebetkovacs2527from what I know, those kinds of pre-made or pre-packaged foods were considered the height of luxury back then, and it took a long time for them to be seen as low class
@@goranpersson7726that's a good observation, because the jelly mould craze started in the 1800s among the upper class. Not only is it the ownership of an icebox and access to the gelatin, but it's also the ease of having servants prepare it for you. It would have been a huge symbol of conspicuous consumption to place a big jelly in the middle of your dinner table.
love you bringing back odd american specialties. Not every YT chef has to be doing the same wagyu bs. Some italian american, midwestern, southern, lil regional or forgetten-in-time-classics are gold
The historical context: Historically, gelatin was a pain in the @$$ to cook and associated with very fancy dining. When the industrial-produced stuff became available in the '50s, a lot of these crazy recipes took off and people just sort of went nuts with them for 15 or 20 years.
Dad's pancake recipe is almost unreadable at this point. Coffee stains, tea stains, fading ink, bleeding ink... The recipe was hand-written on a cue card, and has been there for as long as I can remember... every time Dad makes it, it's the best morning ever.
Mid-century Midwestern women discovered Jello and never managed to move on. When done right, it’s actually pretty good and refreshing. When done wrong…
@@borby4584 any time a jello salad is a jello FRUIT salad, it's generally good. My family makes a jello salad out of oranges and cream. It's very good and more of a desert than a side dish.
@@user-qo1hy8dq3f Precisely. My grandmother would make a pistachio jello salad that had fruits and nuts in it and was pretty great. I’m sure that if you get the flavor balance right you can get away with a more savory kind of salad like what Adam’s mother in law makes but it ultimately may just come down to individual taste and one’s tolerance for gelatinous foods.
It's not just an american thing ! I'm from Québec and my mom told me about jello salads like this (I really thought she was talking about aspic but no she is certain that my grandma used lemon jello) with boiled eggs, which fits with your tuna salad / egg salad comparison
As someone who grew up in Pittsburgh, worked in New Castle, went to school in Ohio, and now lives in Philadelphia, I thoroughly agree with your assessment that western PA is very much midwestern.
Those are the best kind of recipe printouts, because you can just tell that the recipe was actually used and made into a favourite dish many times. For someone raised in Central Europe, this is a wonderfully bizarre recipe, and I'm intrigued. However, we don't have Jello. Could it sub it for regular gelatine powder, as there are already lemons, too, in it?
You could use plain gelatin or even like a meat stock with a lot of gelatin that sets up when cold. It just won’t taste as lemony or nearly as sweet like this recipe unless you also added sugar.
@@ashkinjoy4706 ya, I could clearly hear it and understand what reber is. I'm saying the computer program Adam uses to transcribe his captions couldn't figure it out. So he just needs to manually fix that line in the transcript.
@@bloodalchemyYou'd hope at his scale he'd have a competent human do the captions, (and have them ask for clarification if anything is unclear), not rely on a compute program. Understandable that low budget small channels don't do it, but it is a disability inclusion issue.
@barneylaurance1865 But you don't know how often or rarely there are captioning mistakes like this. No-one and no system is ever perfect. I'm sure the audio isn't always perfect either. Deaf people are not going to be excluded by a single missed word in an occasional video.
I gotta admit though, I'm very curious. I wonder if making the Jello with spinach water would make it more spinachy. I wonder if other Jello flavors would work too.
I am of the vintage to have grown up with Aspic and other funky congealed salads. I am making this salad with Ricotta, fresh lemon juice, erythritol and Agar powder. Thanks to your Outlaw for the recipe. 😊
This reminds me of the weird kind of jello-food that my Finnish grandma makes when she wants to host a fancy family dinner. I do not blame her of course - my, or our, modern palette simply isn't in-tune with hers. She grew up _dirt_ poor in the north of Finland, right after several wars. And also, the cuisine was probably influenced by Russian food over the years, I do believe they also have some kind of jello-cake.. thing. But you bet I eat the crap out of anything she gives me, because that woman deserves to be happy for the rest of her life! Peace out.
Episode is filled with nostalgia for me, I grew up in the 70's and my Grandma made these kinds of jello salads all the time. I remember one with ham, pineapple and cabbage. I haven't had one in a long, long time, but at least as a child, I remember enjoying them. I must admit, doesn't look as appetizing in 2024.
I grew up in the 70's eating a lot of jello. My Mom was into tupperware and putting jello in tupperware was a trend. I grew up in California though and it was popular there too not just the midwest. We often had lime jello with finely chopped carrots and celery. This was probably a way to get us to eat more carrots and celery. The other jello mold she made was something we had every thanksgiving. Raspberry jello with half the hot water and using frozen raspberries to finish it. Then fill the mold halfway up and wait for it to firm up. Put 8+ oz of lightly sweetened sour cream then carefully put the rest of the jello and raspberry mixture to finish filling the mold. I actually still make that one from time to time. It's pretty darn delicious. I recently went to a local church luncheon and someone brought a savory salmon jello mold. It was creamy looking with green onion, celery and salmon. I think the creamy stuff was softened cream cheese because it was nicely tangy but not really sweet in any way. I thought it tasted fine and I sought out the maker to tell her. I'm ambivalent about jello. I don't eat it but I don't hate it. And if it shows up I'm likely to try it.
one of my favorite neal stephenson quotes, referring to that "midwest" thing of making food exclusively out of cans and boxes of other pre-made foods: “...he was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods that had already been prepared (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient.”
I love old recipe pages like that one from your mil, really shows how much it’s been used. On another note, pretty sure you could spin this into a dip - minus the jello quite easily and it would probably be pretty tasty
I love the flavor of this video. A food that Adam (and maybe a lot of us) doesn't love, but can still appreciate and learn about. And the people that do love it kindly enduring a bit of light, friendly teasing. This is the best side of the internet. More of this from everyone please.
I always love Adam's explanation of food and his over analysis of something as simple as a jello mold... I really do appreciate the videos! I wait each week to learn from him! Thank you! also New Castle, Pa has a large population of Syrian immigrants as I've found looking on the menus of many restaurants and asking why? Again another byproduct of watching Adam's videos... asking why. Thanks again for the lessons in critical thinking about food.
Here's one I found in a newspaper for Milpitas California! LUNCHEON SALAD 1 pkg. lemon jello in 1/2 cup hot water. Fold in 1 can chunk tuna. Add 1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted. Mix together 2 tablespoons chopped green pepper, 2 tablespoons chopped onion, and 1/2 cup mayonnaise. Then fold in 1/2 cup cream, whipped. Pour into greased mold and chill. --Mrs. Ben Rodgers Was from the archives for the 1950s
I looked at it and thought of Salmon Terrine, and I think next Easter that would be a nice appetiser. No gelatine though, but it's a nice, luxurious fish course, and child friendly. Serve with baguette, or melba toast, or some crisp crackers. Depending on your chosen presentation, you can fill it flakes of smoked salmon fillet, or canned salmon pieces. But if you make individual ones, a few slices of the smoked stuff will stretch further.
It’s like a crustless quiche to me. It’s cute!! I often whip up a savory mousse of mushroom, celeriac, peas or what have you, with gelatin powder or corn starch instead of yolks or a ton of butter. Makes beautiful cut outs adding height and flavor to the dish.
Well, here in Croatia we make something similar. Instead of jello, the base is boiled pigs feet soup. After you boil them for 3-4 hours you cool a small sample. If it sets fine great, if not you add some gelatin. Then you pick off the meat of said feet to use it for the dish. You layer various vegetables, sliced hard boiled eggs and feet meat. Pour the gelatin soup over it and leave to set.
Adam, I watched a video saying cowboy coffee was the best way to make coffee. They put a pot of water on the stove, threw in some ground coffee and boiled it to death. No filter needed, the grounds sink to the bottom so you just drink it till you can’t.
I would love a gelatin salad combos episode for summer. Just any brand of juice you like from the store, any frozen fruit you like from the store, unflavored gelatin, stabilized whipped cream and creme diplomat, MAYBE a tiny bit of sugar, done. I will be sticking to my own spinach dip mold recipe, but this looks good.
I was born in 1961 so had to eat a lot of jello based salads. But I don't recall any that combined lemon jello and spinach (or any other vegetable). They mostly used nuts and fruits (e.g., pineapple) along with cottage cheese and sometimes mayonnaise; all bound together by jello. They weren't great but I was happy to eat a serving. Not sure I could have stomached one made with spinach since my mother would put canned spinach in a pot and cook it (not just heat it) until it was almost grey. I didn't learn to like spinach until my mid 20's when I stumbled across raw spinach salads with nuts and fruits (e.g., sliced strawberries) coated with a raspberry (or strawberry) vinaigrette.
My parents came from the upper Midwest, and I remember eating food like this growing up. I even inherited some plastic molds that are shaped like Bundt cake pans - certainly intended for cold, molded, salads and not the oven. (I've never used them.) PS: Props to your MIL for bringing a kitschy-style food to a RUclips cook. She should have known this might happen! ❤
Unironically this looks like the first time I've seen a Midwest Jello anything actually look healthy and appealing. I had written such things off, but I'm very glad you shared this recipe and history with us today!
I think it really is a show of love and affection to make this dish, because honestly the spinach/celery/onion/lemon juice/cream cheese mixture looks good enough that I'd have just eaten that. I'd only bother with congealing it into a nice shape for people who matter to me.
I've got such a salad in my repertoire a package each of lemon and lime jello, disolved appropriately in hot/ cold water 3-4 carrots grated (figure about a cup and a half) 3-4 celery stalks finely diced 1 can of crushed pineapple, drained 5-7 maraschino cherries, finely diced (originally) 1/2 cup walnuts (we leave out as we found out that people at our potlucks were allergic) No need to mold, but DO chill until firm Dressing the juice from the pineapple 1/2 - 3/4 cup miracle whip / mayo. It's SUPER refreshing on a hot summer day.
My paternal grandmother was a pretty basic cook (a lot of that is probably because my grandfother was diametrically opposite to adventurous when it came to food), but for special occasions, she'd pull out the gelatin moulds. My favourite, that I still make sometimes, is grated carrots in orange jello, served as a vegetable dish during the meal. The next best one was the Waldorf Jello Salad, which had finely chopped apple pieces, walnuts and maraschino cherries, in cherry jello. Another good one was a can of fruit salad in cherry jello. Those two were generally desserts.
I love spinach....fresh, canned or frozen pretty much tastes the same, I managed to survive the gelatin craze of the 60-70s :p but this I want to try, hmm..cottage cheese and mayonaise are not my favorites, and I do still see these dishes at potlucks, bbq and the such :) ....I'm in southern Texas. Thanks Adam and Mom-in-law :)
can you make a video about how to make homemade dumplings? like wrappers dough and everything. would be great if the viewers could customized the filling!
My grandma used to make something like this, but it was a dessert, without the vegetables. It was lime jello and cottage cheese mostly. We called it "the green stuff". It was good.
Gosh that brings back memories. My grandmother used to make all kinds of congealed salads, including grated carrots in orange jello, crushed pineapple and lime jello, etc etc. There were others
My favorite thing about these kind of midwestern throwback dishes is just how different they are from what a lot of the rest of our country consumes. I'd definitely try it, probably mush it onto some toast so that any potential texture hang-ups were mitigated.
Хобби
As I've heard it explained, before the introduction of commercial gelatin, aspics were considered a very haute cuisine thing because making clear, neutral-tasting gelatin was an extremely time-consuming and laborious process. Once Jell-O and its competitors hit the market, now every housewife could make one for the church potluck and went a bit overboard.
'Tis true, indeed. Ann Reardon made a couple videos on these antiquated jelly recipes, and one can see for themselves who labour intensive it all was back then, working with raw animal parts.
A lot of the weird 50s food trends were because they came out of the scarcity of WWII and the packaged foods made previously difficult to make/buy foods easy for the average person to make.
aspics are nice, but that contraption of cold spinach jello frightens me
That's true, but it doesn't explain the American use of sweetened, flavoured gelatin for a salad. Was plain, unflavoured gelatin not available?
@@henryblunt8503 Companies like Jello made recipes for home cooks showing off what you could do with all their products to get consumers to buy them.
I feel like Adam really had a ball with this one. Tongue-in-cheek yet still affectionate teasing, awesomely wholehearted! Hope your mother-in-law also enjoys this one, Adam!
I agree. This is how you throw shade at in-laws with class, two spoons of sugar and spice and all things nice and a little little bit of salty sprinkle on top.
i hope she doesn't.
@@notnilc2107 Good one, buddy.
it's me, Adam's mother in law. Loved this vid
6:00 Fun fact, you can do this because gelatin is "thermoreversible." You can melt and re-chill it repeatedly, and it won't lose its gelling properties.
Similar to glycerin soap!
Just don't boil it, as that will denature the gelatin proteins, ruining the gelatinous properties.
Up until a point. If the gelatin gets too hot, it definitely will lose its gelling properties.
@@VyvienneEauxvery important addition. If the gelatin reaches 212F or 100C, the proteins begin to unravel. The initial introduction of boiled water cools quickly enough to retain the Jello's stability.
lmao the utter defeat when she says you need a pack of Jell-O after saying she wasn't a midwestern
I think this is a fantastic example of why *texture*, not flavor, is probably the main driver or food aversions and cultural preferences around food. From a purely flavor standpoint, I think most people unaccustomed to artificially-gelatinized food would find the flavors delicious, Adam included. However, when one’s flavor expectations (in this case, savory with spinach, onions, cheese) are different from one’s texture expectations (cold, jiggly, springy, gelatinized), it creates sensory confusion from what one’s culture expects in a food.
This is likely why, for example, most people are repulsed by the idea of warm, liquid ice cream, or ice cream with Parmesan in it (which people used to eat), or even pineapple on a pizza. I think people’s food aversions are valid, but it is interesting how *texture*, rather than flavor, is what probably draws people away from some food items.
I agree 100%
Oooh, Hawaiian pizza is delicious. 😋 I'm quite happy to try different foods, even if they look weird. So I might have a go at making this, if I can get hold of the Jello. Methinks Hartley's jelly cubes might not work the same way in this recipe! (I'm in the UK.)
Yeah, that's the main reason I don't even do too many toppings on my pizza or go for lasagna edge pieces, I actually don't want too much of adam's oft-beloved heterogeneity.
Flavour can be a big put-off too.
I know it's not so much in the "slather sweet chili/syrupy BBQ sauce on everything" states, but sweetness and sweet flavours (like mint or cinnamon) in savory dishes very much still has "foreign/ethnic food" connotations in Europe. I've had friends and family act surprised when they find out my red sauce contains sugar and cinnamon. Or weird looks when you have curry or lamb with mint. Doubly weird because many true classics of European cuisine do combine sweet and savory.
Fishy/briny flavours can be a big turn-off too, just think of how many non-South-East Asian people balk at fish sauce or dried shrimp.
Is this Joshua Weissman's alt account?? 🤣
Dear Adam’s MIL,
Thank you for being such a good sport about this! Most of us know not all recipes stand the test of time, so this was a nice retrospective on a Midwestern dish. Although, respectfully, I think I’ll continue to eat my lemon jello and onions separately.
As someone who spent way too much time on the internet, I saw that abbreviated word and had to do a double take.
@@pradipayogyartha328 It doesn't has an F at the end so he is safe
So, Food scientist here- regarding the brick-like spinich, the shape is due to the technology used to freeze it- It’s called a plate and frame freezer, and TBH, its Introduction basically launched the frozen food industry, and allowed for a giant leap with regard to ingredient availibility year round, which is somethingwe all too often take for granted. (Thanks Clarence Birdseye!)
The equipment works by pressing food between 2 extremely cold plates (they usually have a chilled fluid flowing inside hollows manufactured in the plate) For things like burger patties, or fish filets or whatnot, those can go in as-is (without the frame, making it just a plate freezer) but most vegetables have to be restrained by the frame. You can get other veggies in block form (peas aren't too hard to find, and quite a few fruits can be gotten like this), but most frozen produce is now done IQF, so you freeze faster (more fresh-like quality) and you can portion more easily. (There's a reason that the old Ginsu knife commercials showed them sawing through shoes, metal cans, concrete blocks, and bricks of spinach.
Underrated post. Thanks for this information. I'm always curious about how things are manufactured.
as in, captain birdseye?
@@thejesusaurus6573 Basically. (The Captain is a ficticious advertising character for the Company that Birdseye founded. Edit- Well sorta. He sold his company/tech to a larger firm that eventually established the Birdseye company, but he worked for them after the fact as well)
Interesting. Thank you for the education.
Super interesting. I am neither a food scientist nor chef, just a geeky curious home cook.
The square of spinach is actually the cheapest. The flash frozen bags generally have less spinach per mass than the block for the same price, and the block is generally already wilted. Great for when you dont need delicate barely wilted leaves in your dish
Growing up in the 80s, all I remember seeing is those blocks. It's only recently that I've seen the bags in the freezer section.
I'm willing to pay more to be able to just throw a little spinach into something without having to thaw out a whole block.
And it's an efficient use of truck, grocery store, and home freezer space. Also it doesn't slip around like the bags is frozen food do.
I imagine this is the form factor for spinach and not other veg because the spinach can be compacted into a brick without much loss of quality, while something like frozen carrots wouldn't cheerfully conform to brick shape.
@@OrigamiMarie Exactly what I thought when Adam questioned the shape. It's more stackable!!
I’m not American and it’s my first time seeing spinach sold already chopped up and like a brick.
I feel like one of the best flexes in life has to be your son-in-law bragging to the internet about how much they love you. Lauren’s mom must be a wonderful person ✨
I've heard that these recipes started as a way to show off your refrigerator. You have to have a fridge to make this stuff, so it was a bit of a class flex
On the other hand, I wonder how expensive or cheap the shop bought jell-o powder was then. So was it a rich flex, or a "I work so much that I don't have time for proper home made food" flex, or a bit of both?
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 before fridges and mass produced gelatin products I imagine a recipe like this was quite the flex, no reasonable place to chill it and a fairly long tedius process for the gelatin (not particularly hard although if you went with aspic then ye it could be a bit challenging)
@@erzsebetkovacs2527from what I know, those kinds of pre-made or pre-packaged foods were considered the height of luxury back then, and it took a long time for them to be seen as low class
@@goranpersson7726that's a good observation, because the jelly mould craze started in the 1800s among the upper class. Not only is it the ownership of an icebox and access to the gelatin, but it's also the ease of having servants prepare it for you. It would have been a huge symbol of conspicuous consumption to place a big jelly in the middle of your dinner table.
love you bringing back odd american specialties. Not every YT chef has to be doing the same wagyu bs. Some italian american, midwestern, southern, lil regional or forgetten-in-time-classics are gold
Gave up those sorts of YT chefs last year and have been so much happier without their meme-y, overproduced trend du'joir videos!
The historical context: Historically, gelatin was a pain in the @$$ to cook and associated with very fancy dining. When the industrial-produced stuff became available in the '50s, a lot of these crazy recipes took off and people just sort of went nuts with them for 15 or 20 years.
This really looks wild, but if Adam made a video about it im sure it's good
Don’t be so sure!
@@aragusea this ring seems delicious but where i live ther are versions that looked absolutely disgusting lol. like oysters and other things.
Can confirm these types of things are better than you’d expect but worse than you’d wish for
@@aragusea I thought your mother in law reads the comments!!?
@@aragusea stop picking on your mother in law
I didn't even know frozen blocks of spinach were a thing
Very common from the 1950s through the 1970s. Yuppies decides it was déclassé.
They're great when making soups. Just dump the block into the boiling pot of water (carefully) and wait.
It's also pre shredded so it's Uber convenient!
it's 69-99cents a brick, can be tossed into lots of dishes, good way to get easy fiber.
Still common today. I always have several in my freezer
Lemon + spinach... Strikes me as Greek inspired, right out of the gate
Adam's kinda-retirement has given us some of the most enjoyable videos on the channel. Happy for him
Hello, Lauren's Mom 😀
(And yes, Adam: Nothing beats an old, printed-out, often used, stained recipe.)
Exactly, that was where my grandpa kept his fudge recipes.
Dad's pancake recipe is almost unreadable at this point. Coffee stains, tea stains, fading ink, bleeding ink...
The recipe was hand-written on a cue card, and has been there for as long as I can remember... every time Dad makes it, it's the best morning ever.
History's first ever sexy Lemon Jello pour. Inspirational
Mid-century Midwestern women discovered Jello and never managed to move on.
When done right, it’s actually pretty good and refreshing. When done wrong…
I’m surprised it even CAN be done right.
How.
Commenting so I can find out how this can be done r i g h t
@@borby4584 any time a jello salad is a jello FRUIT salad, it's generally good. My family makes a jello salad out of oranges and cream. It's very good and more of a desert than a side dish.
@@user-qo1hy8dq3f Precisely. My grandmother would make a pistachio jello salad that had fruits and nuts in it and was pretty great.
I’m sure that if you get the flavor balance right you can get away with a more savory kind of salad like what Adam’s mother in law makes but it ultimately may just come down to individual taste and one’s tolerance for gelatinous foods.
You think that's bad? You've never seen an eastern europeam granny make a block of jello with pork and chicken bits floating in it
That looks like the "food" that Calvin did battle with in countless panels of "Calvin and Hobbes".
Looks like spinach dip with a shape
It's not just an american thing ! I'm from Québec and my mom told me about jello salads like this (I really thought she was talking about aspic but no she is certain that my grandma used lemon jello) with boiled eggs, which fits with your tuna salad / egg salad comparison
I think we've accidentally summoned B. Dylan Hollis.
As someone who grew up in Pittsburgh, worked in New Castle, went to school in Ohio, and now lives in Philadelphia, I thoroughly agree with your assessment that western PA is very much midwestern.
Those are the best kind of recipe printouts, because you can just tell that the recipe was actually used and made into a favourite dish many times. For someone raised in Central Europe, this is a wonderfully bizarre recipe, and I'm intrigued. However, we don't have Jello. Could it sub it for regular gelatine powder, as there are already lemons, too, in it?
You could use plain gelatin or even like a meat stock with a lot of gelatin that sets up when cold. It just won’t taste as lemony or nearly as sweet like this recipe unless you also added sugar.
Adam, at 3:22 whatever program does your captions left a note that it couldn't figure out what you were saying, but you clearly said 'rebar'
google rebar and you'll understand with the context in which he says it
@@ashkinjoy4706 ya, I could clearly hear it and understand what reber is. I'm saying the computer program Adam uses to transcribe his captions couldn't figure it out. So he just needs to manually fix that line in the transcript.
as a non-native english speaker, the fact that I caught something the captions didn't makes me feel somewhat proud
@@bloodalchemyYou'd hope at his scale he'd have a competent human do the captions, (and have them ask for clarification if anything is unclear), not rely on a compute program. Understandable that low budget small channels don't do it, but it is a disability inclusion issue.
@barneylaurance1865 But you don't know how often or rarely there are captioning mistakes like this. No-one and no system is ever perfect. I'm sure the audio isn't always perfect either. Deaf people are not going to be excluded by a single missed word in an occasional video.
Happy belated April Fool's day!
I gotta admit though, I'm very curious. I wonder if making the Jello with spinach water would make it more spinachy. I wonder if other Jello flavors would work too.
@@violet_broregardeusing spinach jello makes it taste better😊
@@boneless9311 All of you stop this, spinach deserves better than being used on jello
Your MIL sounds very cute! I hope you all had a great Easter
I am of the vintage to have grown up with Aspic and other funky congealed salads. I am making this salad with Ricotta, fresh lemon juice, erythritol and Agar powder. Thanks to your Outlaw for the recipe. 😊
How was this not released on April 1st?! 🤣
In my head its because he had to figure out how to get it out of the mold without ruining it and it took him many attempts :p
@@Y0G0FUthat’s what i’m now sticking with
Dylan Hollis: I sense someone muscling in on my territory
Is he still making videos?
I absolutely love historical recipes. It’s fascinating the way food and our tastes change over time.
Then I presume you know about the Max Miller channel?
Definitely something B. Dylan Hollis would get flashbacks about.
And something That Midwestern Mom would genuinely at least try 😂
Is this a collab with B. Dylan Hollis 😂
Das what I thought.
"A SPINACH RING, FROM THE 60's!"
He would be a fantastic podcast guest if Adam ever continues the podcast.
FIREEE!
MOO JUICE!
i hoped till the end that Dylan made an appereance ;p Its a recipe for him for sure
This reminds me of the weird kind of jello-food that my Finnish grandma makes when she wants to host a fancy family dinner. I do not blame her of course - my, or our, modern palette simply isn't in-tune with hers. She grew up _dirt_ poor in the north of Finland, right after several wars. And also, the cuisine was probably influenced by Russian food over the years, I do believe they also have some kind of jello-cake.. thing.
But you bet I eat the crap out of anything she gives me, because that woman deserves to be happy for the rest of her life! Peace out.
Does she make salad Olivier? Because that would be definitely a Russian influence.
This is probably the only recipe where im more invested in the history/background
than about the recipe itself
If you're a fan of Tasting History (and if you're not, sounds like you should be), you could ask Max to take a detour into this phenomenon.
@UCKutR5q3EsaeEfULzJ54gvQGet out, scambot.
Crazy how you manhandled that blob when putting it back in the mold
fabulous and kind to your MIL, this made me happy
"I'm southern!" *Does the most midwestern thing to create the most midwestern dish of all time*
yeah it’s too real.
Mayonnaise, lemon jello, spinach all in the same recipe. My heart says yes but my tongue says no, probably gonna make it anyway
Mayonnaise goes well with lemon, spinach goes well with cheese. I'm sure this jello ring tastes ok. It's just very unfashionable.
Why would your heart say yes. That's also emotionally gross
@@reviewchan9806 im a child still at heart. The one that mixes random sauces in the fridge when home alone just to see what they taste like
@@dylans.6400 potion
Hilarious!!!! Best laugh all week. Thank you Adam Ragusea.
I loved the vibe of this video, so chill and I think Adam is more relaxed than before making the video more entertaining and fun to watch.
Episode is filled with nostalgia for me, I grew up in the 70's and my Grandma made these kinds of jello salads all the time. I remember one with ham, pineapple and cabbage. I haven't had one in a long, long time, but at least as a child, I remember enjoying them. I must admit, doesn't look as appetizing in 2024.
Thanks for the recipe and for raising Lauren, Ms. Morrill!
Bless her heart! Mamma Ragusea is what we live for.
The stained printout recipe from a binder is a universal experience. Much like the sewing supplies in the danish butter cookies tin.
We have a similar recipe with cucumber, lime jello, garlic salt, cream cheese and mayo. People love it, It's a very refreshing summer side
That sounds delicious. Midwest raita or tzatziki
Good to see you enjoying your mother in law’s ring. Not many people have this relationship
If this happens when you retire, I might keep working a bit longer.
Thank you for your work.
I like seeing Adam's slow descent into pourover coffee. Didn't take long for the Fellow kettle and Chemex brewer to make it home
My mother did congealed salads like that, lemon Jell-O , cottage cheese and all.
I grew up in the 70's eating a lot of jello. My Mom was into tupperware and putting jello in tupperware was a trend. I grew up in California though and it was popular there too not just the midwest.
We often had lime jello with finely chopped carrots and celery. This was probably a way to get us to eat more carrots and celery. The other jello mold she made was something we had every thanksgiving. Raspberry jello with half the hot water and using frozen raspberries to finish it. Then fill the mold halfway up and wait for it to firm up. Put 8+ oz of lightly sweetened sour cream then carefully put the rest of the jello and raspberry mixture to finish filling the mold. I actually still make that one from time to time. It's pretty darn delicious.
I recently went to a local church luncheon and someone brought a savory salmon jello mold. It was creamy looking with green onion, celery and salmon. I think the creamy stuff was softened cream cheese because it was nicely tangy but not really sweet in any way. I thought it tasted fine and I sought out the maker to tell her. I'm ambivalent about jello. I don't eat it but I don't hate it. And if it shows up I'm likely to try it.
Adam's mother in law is lovely and every little bit we learn about her makes me go "Aww she's awesome!"
Thanks For this! Love your content
I'm from west of the Mississippi and I have trouble including Michigan in the Midwest, East Coast guy. :)
one of my favorite neal stephenson quotes, referring to that "midwest" thing of making food exclusively out of cans and boxes of other pre-made foods:
“...he was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods that had already been prepared (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient.”
I love old recipe pages like that one from your mil, really shows how much it’s been used.
On another note, pretty sure you could spin this into a dip - minus the jello quite easily and it would probably be pretty tasty
This is the most mother-in-law contribution to a holiday potluck I've ever heard of.
Nice to see some family recipies
I love the flavor of this video. A food that Adam (and maybe a lot of us) doesn't love, but can still appreciate and learn about. And the people that do love it kindly enduring a bit of light, friendly teasing.
This is the best side of the internet. More of this from everyone please.
I always love Adam's explanation of food and his over analysis of something as simple as a jello mold... I really do appreciate the videos! I wait each week to learn from him! Thank you! also New Castle, Pa has a large population of Syrian immigrants as I've found looking on the menus of many restaurants and asking why? Again another byproduct of watching Adam's videos... asking why. Thanks again for the lessons in critical thinking about food.
I suspect it would look better if you used a mold with less nooks and crannies.
Does your mother-in-law know Aunt Myrna?
Dude, Adam said be nice
Deep YT lore
If Adam got back into going for "gains" in the weight room and then recorded with his shirt off, would that be Cooking With Jacked?
Here's one I found in a newspaper for Milpitas California!
LUNCHEON SALAD
1 pkg. lemon jello in 1/2 cup hot water. Fold in 1 can chunk tuna. Add 1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted. Mix together 2 tablespoons chopped green pepper, 2 tablespoons chopped onion, and 1/2 cup mayonnaise. Then fold in 1/2 cup cream, whipped. Pour into greased mold and chill.
--Mrs. Ben Rodgers
Was from the archives for the 1950s
As a New Yorker transplanted to Iowa, I can 100% attest that frozen blocks of spinach are indeed a thing out here.
I looked at it and thought of Salmon Terrine, and I think next Easter that would be a nice appetiser. No gelatine though, but it's a nice, luxurious fish course, and child friendly. Serve with baguette, or melba toast, or some crisp crackers. Depending on your chosen presentation, you can fill it flakes of smoked salmon fillet, or canned salmon pieces. But if you make individual ones, a few slices of the smoked stuff will stretch further.
It's no Aunt Myrna's party cheese salad, but it will do.
It’s like a crustless quiche to me. It’s cute!! I often whip up a savory mousse of mushroom, celeriac, peas or what have you, with gelatin powder or corn starch instead of yolks or a ton of butter. Makes beautiful cut outs adding height and flavor to the dish.
an improved version of aunt myrna's party cheese salad
Carful Adam, you keep being this entertaining and you are gonna GAIN subs instead of losing them 😜
This food just fills me with thoughts of family. I love the novelty and I absolutely love that paper recipe.
Damn Adam, you look healthy and happy. Wish you all The best!
this is something out of a molecular gastronomy menu
Well, here in Croatia we make something similar. Instead of jello, the base is boiled pigs feet soup. After you boil them for 3-4 hours you cool a small sample. If it sets fine great, if not you add some gelatin. Then you pick off the meat of said feet to use it for the dish. You layer various vegetables, sliced hard boiled eggs and feet meat. Pour the gelatin soup over it and leave to set.
Adam, I watched a video saying cowboy coffee was the best way to make coffee. They put a pot of water on the stove, threw in some ground coffee and boiled it to death. No filter needed, the grounds sink to the bottom so you just drink it till you can’t.
This feels like a happy medium between a serious video and an April Fool's video! Delightful!
This is wild. I probably won't ever make this, but it's neat and I do appreciate the retro food stuff.
I would love a gelatin salad combos episode for summer. Just any brand of juice you like from the store, any frozen fruit you like from the store, unflavored gelatin, stabilized whipped cream and creme diplomat, MAYBE a tiny bit of sugar, done. I will be sticking to my own spinach dip mold recipe, but this looks good.
Adam does his best to hide his contempt for 8 minutes
I was born in 1961 so had to eat a lot of jello based salads. But I don't recall any that combined lemon jello and spinach (or any other vegetable). They mostly used nuts and fruits (e.g., pineapple) along with cottage cheese and sometimes mayonnaise; all bound together by jello. They weren't great but I was happy to eat a serving. Not sure I could have stomached one made with spinach since my mother would put canned spinach in a pot and cook it (not just heat it) until it was almost grey. I didn't learn to like spinach until my mid 20's when I stumbled across raw spinach salads with nuts and fruits (e.g., sliced strawberries) coated with a raspberry (or strawberry) vinaigrette.
My parents came from the upper Midwest, and I remember eating food like this growing up. I even inherited some plastic molds that are shaped like Bundt cake pans - certainly intended for cold, molded, salads and not the oven. (I've never used them.)
PS: Props to your MIL for bringing a kitschy-style food to a RUclips cook. She should have known this might happen! ❤
I absolutely love it how you react to the sound of the jello salad at 6:13 😆
Unironically this looks like the first time I've seen a Midwest Jello anything actually look healthy and appealing. I had written such things off, but I'm very glad you shared this recipe and history with us today!
Looks very appealing
I think it really is a show of love and affection to make this dish, because honestly the spinach/celery/onion/lemon juice/cream cheese mixture looks good enough that I'd have just eaten that. I'd only bother with congealing it into a nice shape for people who matter to me.
I've got such a salad in my repertoire
a package each of lemon and lime jello, disolved appropriately in hot/ cold water
3-4 carrots grated (figure about a cup and a half)
3-4 celery stalks finely diced
1 can of crushed pineapple, drained
5-7 maraschino cherries, finely diced
(originally) 1/2 cup walnuts (we leave out as we found out that people at our potlucks were allergic)
No need to mold, but DO chill until firm
Dressing
the juice from the pineapple
1/2 - 3/4 cup miracle whip / mayo.
It's SUPER refreshing on a hot summer day.
I LOVE YOU ADAM!!!
I think this is fantastic! Super different than what I'm used to but I want to try it
My paternal grandmother was a pretty basic cook (a lot of that is probably because my grandfother was diametrically opposite to adventurous when it came to food), but for special occasions, she'd pull out the gelatin moulds. My favourite, that I still make sometimes, is grated carrots in orange jello, served as a vegetable dish during the meal. The next best one was the Waldorf Jello Salad, which had finely chopped apple pieces, walnuts and maraschino cherries, in cherry jello. Another good one was a can of fruit salad in cherry jello. Those two were generally desserts.
I love spinach....fresh, canned or frozen pretty much tastes the same, I managed to survive the gelatin craze of the 60-70s :p but this I want to try, hmm..cottage cheese and mayonaise are not my favorites, and I do still see these dishes at potlucks, bbq and the such :) ....I'm in southern Texas. Thanks Adam and Mom-in-law :)
can you make a video about how to make homemade dumplings? like wrappers dough and everything.
would be great if the viewers could customized the filling!
Love the new "Cooking with Jack show" format
Finally a proper brewing technique! ☕️♥️
Hows your non stick pan going. Misan? Was it? Would u still recommend it? Or do u prefer other brands
My grandma used to make something like this, but it was a dessert, without the vegetables. It was lime jello and cottage cheese mostly. We called it "the green stuff". It was good.
I would love to taste that :-) I bet it is really good. Thanks for sharing.
I’m eagerly awaiting for a Chef John rendition of this mid-west American classic lol. It’s certainly something but I would still try it
Gosh that brings back memories. My grandmother used to make all kinds of congealed salads, including grated carrots in orange jello, crushed pineapple and lime jello, etc etc. There were others
My favorite thing about these kind of midwestern throwback dishes is just how different they are from what a lot of the rest of our country consumes. I'd definitely try it, probably mush it onto some toast so that any potential texture hang-ups were mitigated.