Retro Wobbles But It Won’t Fall Down

For this, the eighth Retro Recipe Challenge, brainchild of Laura Rebecca, our host, Rachel has chosen a theme of gelatin-containing foods from recipes published before 1985. Aside from a brief infatuation with Jell-o desserts as a kid, I’ve not been much of a fan of gelatin.  Those cold gelatin ‘salads’ with meat in them . . . Blech!  And even the fruity, marshmallow studded Jell-o salads, those just didn’t fit the category of ‘salad’ in my mind.

My entry doesn’t really count as a cookbook challenge. I didn’t get it from a cookbook or at least I don’t remember reading a cookbook when I made these when I was 10 yrs old, which, considering I graduated from high school in 1985, puts it in the time line of the event.

I do not know what the fascination was, I must have seen this in an advertisement, on the back of a package of Jell-o or Dream Whip, in my Mom’s Family Circle/Better Homes & Gardens magazines, or something, but making Jell-o tilt in a cup was just COOL. I remember making these in all kinds of flavors. Lime Jell-o with pineapple; cherry or raspberry Jell-o with peaches, mandarin oranges, or fruit cocktail — the kind that only had one or two of the highly coveted maraschino cherries in the can; orange Jell-o with pineapple or oranges.

My mom had some Tupperware parfait cups in orange, yellow, green, and aqua. Mine are more ‘modern’ but I had to pull them out for this dessert. It’s still a kid pleaser. I even managed to find Dream Whip, which I used as a kid and thought it was no longer made now that we have Cool Whip in the freezer section. And it’s even better when you mix it with some Jell-o so it’s colored! And, by the girls’ standard, it achieved the highest coolness factor for being *pink* when the raspberry Jell-o was stirred in.

Pink. Tilted. Jell-o. What could be better?

Thanks, Rachel, for the little stroll down Memory Lane.