Behold the Jello Mold

Feeling brave and with an hour to kill, I wandered into my parent's house in search of the elusive jello mold. Joe had deterred me enough that I was reluctant to buy one, but I knew my mother, like any good Mennonite woman, would have one stashed away in her cupboard somewhere. I found it lurking on the top shelf along with some antique American china akin to that pictured in the pages of MCC:FFR. It beckoned me with it's silent siren's call, "Come closer, feel my green tubberware sides, succomb to your secret desire to fill me with jello and little floaty food particles that under natural circumstances would never dream of intermingling."

Where had this unspoken longing come from? I don't know, but I'm guessing that it has something to do with winter in the Midwest. The unnaturally bright shades of jello must have been the equivalent to the tanning bed for generations of Mennonite farm women. Is it any coincidence that the name of my dish is "Golden Glow Salad"? Or perhaps the frugality of throwing an odd assortment of leftovers in a mix of gelatin and calling it a "salad" is just too tempting to resist. Either way, I have to admit that the idea of a jello mold certainly held a bit of lustre for me.

Unabashed by my husband's frank dismissal of the jello salad, I thumbed through the pages of MCC for some ideas, trying to avoid ones that, frankly, sounded appalling (for instance, Cardinal Salad, pg. 191, which contains lemon gelatin, beet juice, vinegar, horseradish, onions, beets, and celery). I finallly settled on Golden Glow Salad, pg. 193-194, partly because it used orange gelatin, and partly because it included a recipe for a dressing to be served with it, a concept which was entirely foreign to me.

With just a small amount of fear and trepidation, I went about making preparations for the jello salad. I began by mixing the boiling water with the gelatin and added pineapple juice. While I waited for this mixture to “chill until slightly thickened” (a process that took longer than I anticipated – about an hour), I grated the carrots and the orange rind and mixed them together with the fruit. Then I poured the whole mixture into the jello mold and let it set overnight. I fixed the dressing the next day before dinner, substituting evaporated milk for whipped cream, since we didn’t have any of the latter.

We enjoyed Golden Glow Salad with our dinner of Apricot Chicken and Rice Pilaf. Well, enjoyed might be a slight exaggeration. Joe tolerated it and I was mostly ambivalent – although surprisingly taken with the dressing, which was creamy and not too sweet. A good complement to the salad which was tongue-curlingly tart. Overall, it was a successful cooking endeavor, although not one I’ll soon repeat.