Culinary Anthropology – Part I

Listen, I know it’s the hip thing nowadays to consider yourself a “foodie”. I know it’s nice to think you have the inside track on modern cuisine because you have a season and a half of “Molto Mario” on your DVR and often snort dismissively at whatever the hapless challenger is throwing together on “Iron Chef America”. I know it’s a struggle to reconcile the abhorrent conditions it takes to fatten a goose with how num-num-nummy a bite of foie gras is. And I know you have a handmade jute shopping bag you tote around at the farmer’s market every weekend because Bobby Flay is so damn inspirational.

But you may want to downshift for a second and take a look at the big picture. See, America has a culinary heritage you just can’t escape. On one hand, it’s given us gastronomic miracles like gumbo and fried chicken and bourbon – but on the other hand, it’s the reason there are things like pasteurized process cheese food and SPAM and Jell-O.

Ah, Jell-O. Luminous, jiggly, delicious Jell-O. Because sugar water tastes better when it’s in 3D. What else can be a salad and a dessert? What else freezes bits of solid food in translucent, artificially flavored limbo, like a cut-away model of the human stomach in mid-digestion? Nothing that I know of. And yes, Jell-O molds have largely fallen out of vogue on the American table, hillbilly church pot-lucks notwithstanding. But you don’t have to go back very far to explore our profound and sometimes disgusting fascination with this crown jewel of powdered convenience food.



Case in point: the “Joys of Jell-O” cookbook. I can’t find a publication date on this beauty but I’m guessing it’s mid-20th century, sometime between “I Love Lucy” and “The Mod Squad”. I’m sure that at some point, we’ve all had a scoop of Jell-O thrust at us with the usual suspects thrown in – you know, crushed pineapple, diced pears, sweetened flaked coconut – but this cookbook takes Jell-O to the next quivering level. Oh yes. Consider the offering on page 65 – “Ring-Around-The-Tuna”.

What? A Jell-O ring mold with tuna salad in the middle? Of course not. As stated in the preface to the recipe, this is “A beautiful jewel-like entrée salad for your luncheon or buffett table”. See, what you do is, you take a package of lime (or lemon-lime in a pinch) Jell-O gelatin, dissolve it in 1 cup boiling water, then add ¾ cup cold water, 2 tablespoons vinegar (it’s getting good), and 2 teaspoons grated onion. Chill until “very thick”, then stir in ½ cup diced cucumber, ½ cup diced celery, 2 tablespoons chopped pimento, 2 tablespoons sliced stuffed green olives, and 1 can of drained and flaked tuna. That's right. The tuna - and everything else - goes right into your semi-set bowl of emerald green goo. See? The box says "Dessert". The recipie says "Salad". How did that happen? Magic, that's how. Now, pour this gruel "into individual ring molds or a 1-quart mold and chill until firm." If you want to get fancy, you can opt to serve it “with additional tuna and top salads with mayonnaise.”

If you didn’t totally screw it up, you can count on two things. One, you’ll have a "salad" that looks something like this:

And two, no one will ever - I mean ever - ask you to bring anything to any kind of pot-luck again. I know – it hardly seems fair. But next time you get angry at those snooty French chefs who laugh at what a “foodie” you are, remember Ring-Around-The-Tuna, and how people used to make and eat crap like this. Or how those hacked up radishes up there are inexplicably supposed to pass for roses. And try to understand.

Music Pairing: Pretty much anything by Ferrante & Teicher.