LEFT FOR TEXAS: The Early Years of Jell-O

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Early Years of Jell-O

Anyone who has listened over the years to Garrison Keillor's radio program A Prairie Home Companion will know that Jell-O plays an important part in Lutheran church life. Jell-O goes with everything, even lutefisk. In 1993, my husband, children, and I moved to Cloquet, Minnesota, where we learned first-hand that all those jokes about Jell-O are firmly based in reality. A couple of years after we had moved to Cloquet, a new friend gave me a recipe book that illustrates how Lutherans are in on the joke: Lutheran Church Basement Women: Lutefisk, lefse, lunch, and Jell-O. Yep, the book includes a chapter of Jell-O recipes, with directions for making "Everyday Jello," "Jello for a Crowd," and "Jello and Vegetables," among others. Not very imaginative, our Lutheran Jello lovers (though the title of "Under-the-Sea Pear Salad," sometimes known as "Pharoah's Army Jello," does suggest some hidden depths). Among the boxes of Armstrong-Nugent ephemera are many recipe booklets from the early-to-mid-twentieth century, and among these is at least one little recipe booklet for Jell-O, from which I've taken the images on this post.

You can learn about the history of Jell-O by visiting a Kraft Foods website, "Jell-O History: Behind the Wiggle." There you will discover that lime-flavored Jell-O--good for salads!--was introduced in 1930. The little booklet from which I've taken these images does not list lime as one of the flavorings, so it must have been published before 1930. The Kraft Foods Jell-O history also reveals how well-known artists in the 1920s created illustrations used in Jell-O advertisements. In this little Jell-O recipe booklet, with folded pages tied together with one string running through holes at the upper left-hand corner of each page, are several full-color illustrations. I've included a few of those here. Click on the images for a better view.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Left for Texas: For the Ones Who Came Before Us

Although I am no genealogist, I am interested in the stories, ethics, and views passed down through generations. I grew up in Texas hearing stories associated with my Dugat ancestors who first journeyed from France to The New World and what is now known as Nova Scotia. Eventually booted out by the British, these Acadians found their way to South Louisiana and became known as "Cajuns." My particular branch of Dugats then settled in Texas while it was still under Spanish governance. Other ancestors perhaps fled religious persecution in England, and still others came to America for a number of reasons, traveling south and west, leaving kinfolk behind, transforming their stories over time. Most of my ancestors left little behind except for stories and a few photographs though over time their descendants have pieced together some of the family sagas. (Some family names: Benton, Scott, Deweese, Cole, Simmons, Cooper, Schlobaum, Dobbs)

In contrast, my husband's family left a wealth of family documentation in the form of photographs, letters, and other ephemera. I have created this blog in an attempt to create order from the chaotic family papers that my husband and his sister have inherited. This blog first tells some of the stories of the Armstrongs who left Ireland for America in the 1790s. At the age of ten, William Armstrong accompanied his parents to the New World, and by the time of his death in 1865, he had risen to the United States Congress, as a representative of Virginia. The blog will also include information about the Nugents, the Cooks, the Greenes, and other family names. And I'll add links to information about my own family genealogy. Our stories are much like the stories of other Americans whose ancestors left their original countries for new opportunities in the New World. And they kept traveling, searching, once they arrived.
Anita Dugat-Greene