As Easter approaches, I'm feeling nostalgic for Jell-O | Suzy Fleming Leonard
Easter's almost here, and I'm craving nostalgia.
I'm craving Jell-O salad.
Mama always cooked a big Sunday lunch: fried chicken, turnips and angel biscuits; pot roast, green beans and mashed potatoes. She'd get up early and do much of the prep work before church, letting the pot roast slow cook through Sunday school and the sermon, keeping an eye on her watch and saying a silent prayer that the preacher wouldn't go on a little too long.
For Easter, she kicked Sunday lunch up a notch, with chocolate pie, a loaf of oatmeal bread and Jell-O salad. No special occasion was complete without Jell-O salad.
Though Mama's Jell-O salad was sweet and filled with fruit, it was never considered dessert. It was served at the same time as the meat and vegetables, on a leaf of iceberg lettuce, often topped with a dollop of mayo and some shredded cheddar. Even if the topping was some variation of Cool Whip, it was most definitely still a salad.
It's been years since I've had a Jell-O salad, and I wondered if I was the only one who misses them. I tossed the question out to some writer and editor friends and got varied responses.
"Not a fan then, not a fan now," said Gretchen Day-Bryant of Fort Lauderdale. "My mom made one with lime Jell-O and carrots, and I just don't understand it. Sorry!"
Ann Maloney in Washington, D.C., was on the fence. "Depends on what's in it," she said.
"It's definitely generational," said Alec Harvey of Birmingham, Alabama. He spends Thanksgiving every year with friends who serve an orange Jell-O salad.
"It was his mother's recipe, and it's something they do to honor her memory and remember her," he said.
Diane Cowen in Houston agreed that it's generational.
"My family didn't have much Jell-O salad," she said, but her husband's grandmother made one with lime Jell-O and cottage cheese, topped with Miracle Whip.
"It was horrible," she said, "and they ate it like it was the best thing they ever had. When she died, though, no one ever made it again."
Thoughts of Jell-O concoctions bring a smile to Chris Beringer-Neyens' face.
"My husband's aunt would do raspberry Jell-O with previously frozen raspberries in a round Bundt-type pan," the Seattle resident said. "The nephews would slurp it while she was busy serving the rest of the meal from her tiny kitchen. She'd chide them: 'Pat! Tom! You Stop that!' Sweet memories."
Denise Joyce of Hinsdale, Illinois, said her mother's Jell-O having "pride of place" on the Christmas table.
"She made it in a trifle dish, so the bands of color were impressive," she said. "The challenge was to get the layers precise and separate — no bleeding from one into the other."
Denise also reinforced my mother's Jell-O as salad rather than dessert stance ... sort of.
"When I was in college, I learned that Jell-O on a lettuce leaf was considered salad, and hung out with the greens," she said. "If the same Jell-O was topped with Cool Whip, it was in the dessert case. And since students were limited to only one dessert, you wanted to grab the salad Jell-O and not the Cool Whip Jell-O, because you couldn't get cake or a cookie then."
Though my friends have a lot of geographic diversity, they're all close to my age, so I decided to gather thoughts about Jell-O salad at Jon Skattum's photojournalism class at Eastern Florida State College in Cocoa.
Students in the class ranged from their late teens to their 50s. Most of them shook their heads and looked kind of repulsed when I tossed out the question. But two, Ellie Rexach, 52, of Melbourne, and Sarah Feilinger, 18, of Palm Bay, paused for a moment, as the thought about past family gatherings.
With its soft pastel colors, her grandmother's Jell-O was always the perfect Easter dish, Sarah said. "I think she called it Easter Bunny Fluff."
Ellie said her mother used to make colorful Jell-O and put it in different molds.
"That's my childhood," she said.
Sarah nodded.
"When I think of Christmas, I think of fruit cake," she said. "When I think of Easter, I think of Jell-O."
Ellie, who grew up in New York, said winter was for baking. Jell-O offered a cool, refreshing treat in warmer months. She's made her mother's Jell-O dishes for her children once or twice, for nostalgia's sake.
And nostalgia is exactly why I plan to make my mother's Blueberry Salad for Easter. I may substitute fresh blueberries for canned, but otherwise, I'll make it exactly the way she did, and serve it on lettuce leaves.
Because if it's served on lettuce, I can still have pie for dessert.
Blueberry Salad
Makes about 12 servings
For salad:
1 large package blackberry or raspberry Jell-O
2 cups boiling water
1 15-ounce can blueberries, drained
1 15-ounce can crushed pineapple, drained
For topping:
1 cup whipped topping
8 ounces sour cream
Instructions:
Dissolve Jell-O in boiling water. pour into a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish.
Mix berries and pineapple. Add to Jell-O.
Refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours.
For topping, mix whipped topping and sour cream and spread over Jell-O.
Cut into 3-inch squares and serve on a leaf of iceberg lettuce.
Cover leftovers with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Suzy Fleming Leonard is a features journalist with more than three decades of experience. Reach her at sleonard@floridatoday.com. Find her on Facebook: @SuzyFlemingLeonard or on Instagram: @SuzyLeonard.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Here's my mother's recipe for blueberry Jell-O salad for Easter
