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The most popular culinary use for gelatin is as a main ingredient in a variety of gelatin desserts. In the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa gelatin desserts are referred to as jelly (In the United States and Canada, "jelly" refers to an unrelated product - a pectin thickened clear fruit preserve). Gelatin desserts are also commonly referred to by the trademarked name, Jell-O.
Unprepared gelatin for desserts is often marketed as a flavored powder. Prepared gelatin desserts are marketed in a variety of forms. Popular brands include Jell-O from Kraft Foods in North America, Rowntree's Jelly in the United Kingdom and Aeroplane Jelly in Australia.
History of Jell-O
Although gelatin has been used for many years, the preparation of dessert jellies from gelatin flakes is a laborious process, involving boiling the gelatin with egg whites. The first powdered gelatin for use in desserts was patented in 1845 by Peter Cooper. He did not market his product very effectively, though, and in 1897 sold the patent to cough syrup manufacturer Pearle B. Wait. Wait's wife named the product "Jell-O". The Waits sold Jell-O in strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon flavors. In 1899 Wait sold the business to a neighbor, Orator Francis Woodward, for $450. From around 1900 Jell-O was sold by the Genesee Pure Foods Company (later the Jell-O company, which joined Postum to form the General Foods Corporation, now a brand of Kraft Foods inc.)
Extraction of collagen
The production of gelatin starts with the boiling of bones, skins, and hides of pigs, horses and cows, in 70-foot vats to extract and hydrolyze the protein collagen, which is then soaked and filtered. Horns or hooves are not used, as is traditionally thought. The extract is then dried and ground to form a powder, and is mixed with sugar, adipic acid, fumaric acid, sodium citrate, and artificial flavorings and food colors. Because the collagen is processed extensively, the final product is not categorized as a meat or animal product by the US federal government.
Safety
Eating tainted beef may have led to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, but there are no known cases of variant CJD transmitted through collagen products such as gelatin.
Jello shots
A jello shot is a party food where some sort of alcohol, usually rum, vodka, tequila or sometimes even grain alcohol replaces some of the water or fruit juice.
The American mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer claimed to have invented the Jello shot while working for the National Security Agency, where he developed vodka Jell-O as a way to circumvent a restriction of alcoholic beverages on base. *
Alternatives
Some gelatinous desserts can be made with agar instead of gelatin, allowing them to congeal more quickly and at higher temperatures. Agar, a vegetable product made from seaweed, is used especially in quick jelly powder mix and Asian jelly deserts, but also as an alternative that is acceptable to vegetarians. Agar is more closely related to pectin and other gelling plant carbohydrates than to gelatin.
Another vegan or vegitarian alternative to gelatin is carageenan. This alternative sets more firmly than agar, and is often used in kosher cooking. Though it, too, is a type of seaweed, it tends not to have an unpleasant smell during cooking like agar sometimes does.
Trivia
- Jell-O is the official state snack food of Utah, which is reported to have the highest per capita sales of green gelatin dessert of any U.S. state. Over-fondness of Jell-O is often considered a cliché trait of Mormons even in other areas. See Jello Belt.
- Bill Cosby is often associated with Jell-O because of the many commercials he made for Jell-O branded products.
- Jello Biafra, a well known figure within the punk community, took the first part of his stage name after the Jell-O brandname, and even ran for mayor of San Francisco using the Jell-O ad campaign catchphrase, "There's always room for Jello", as his campaign slogan.*
- Jell-O sponsored Jack Benny's radio comedy show in the 1930s and early 1940s; the program's official title during that period was The Jell-O Show.
External links
"Gelatin dessert"