Jell-O!

(No farm ingredients were harmed in the making of this post, although shredded carrots often make appearances in Jell-O molds.)

Recently, my mom gave me her Tupperware Jell-O molds, so I went all out for a party this past weekend.

In the front of the photo, there is a pineapple lime Jell-O "salad", made with a package of lime Jell-O (a.k.a., "green jello"), an 8 oz package of cream cheese, 1 cup of mini-marshmallows, a drained can of crushed pineapple, and 1 cup of chopped walnuts. A time warp from my childhood to present day, in one wreath-shaped mold.

In the back of the photo, a layered Jell-O "salad" (seriously, who thought to call these salads?). On the top, which was the first flavor to go into the mold, is cherry ("red") Jell-O. After that set, I put in lemon (or "yellow") with a can of mandarin oranges added. (I wasn't kidding about the lack of fresh farm veggies in these....)  Finally, I added a layer of grape ("purple"). While it looked pretty, I think the grape flavor was a bit overwhelming, plus the purple was a bit dark. I think ending with an orange layer would have looked much nicer, like a sunset.

People seemed to enjoy them, but many waited to have them with dessert, rather than eating them with the meal. I suppose you had to grow up in earlier decades to appreciate Jell-O as an accompaniment to dinner.

I've been collecting Jell-O cookbooks for a while now. (I've also read a book about the history of Tupperware.) I learned from one from the 1960s that there used to be vegetable flavored Jell-O, but my mom doesn't remember that. Maybe they were only available in certain areas of the country?  I just found this ad for vegetable flavored Jell-o on the web. I wonder how long those flavors were available. (Yes, I could probably learn with a bit more web searching, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.)