My Lime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise

by Eleanor Nash ‘21

“Jell-O salad is one thing I know!” exclaimed my mom. Growing up in eastern Kansas in the 1960s and ’70s, she was on the receiving end of many Jell-O-based culinary experiments. In my mom’s cupboard sits St. Bernard’s Catholic Church cookbook from 2000, which includes a kaleidoscope of recipes—like Strawberry-Pretzel Salad, Peach Paradise Salad, and Watergate Salad—all combining various Jell-O flavors and mix-ins. Since their invention, Jell-O salads have evolved from show-stopping dishes at dinner parties and potlucks to quaint regional concoctions, a chronology that obscures both the marketing influence of the Jell-O Company and the creativity of everyday women.

Jell-O ad. Image courtesy of Serious Eats.

Since Jell-O was a relatively new invention, trademarked in 1897, housewives like my great-grandma needed to learn how to use it. Cookbooks developed by the Jell-O company in the early 20th century helped popularize their product. They advertised the many uses for Jell-O: incorporating fruits, cream cheese, or marshmallows for a sweet dish or olives, mayonnaise, and hard-boiled eggs for a savory one. The Joys of Jell-O cookbook from the mid-’60s says that savory dishes “are all very well, but kids, husbands, and guests never get quite as worked up over them as they do over dessert. With Jell-O Gelatin they can get as excited as they please, because it’s so light, wholesome, and nourishing.” After World War II, companies rushed to market the wartime trend for preserved foods that had been perfected while many women entered the workforce. Efficiency, modernity, and nutritiousness were promoted by using Jell-O as a shortcut ingredient for more complicated dishes. The Joys of Jell-O cookbook continues, “Here we’ve included all manner of desserts made with Jell-O Gelatin–elegant ones for special occasions, simple ones for everyday.” By suggesting recipes for every occasion, Jell-O encouraged women to think beyond the recipes on the box. After the war, while expectations for women shifted, the time-saving benefits of Jell-O persisted.

Jell-O salads were also opportunities for housewives to innovate in the kitchen and share their creations with loved ones, much to the chagrin of my mom. The middle-class female narrator of William Bolcom’s cabaret song, “Lime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise,” tells her audience, astonished by the absurd ingredients in her fictional concoction, “I did not steal the recipe, it's lies, I tell you, lies!” She is the owner of this improbable recipe, “All topped with a pineapple ring and a dash of mayonnaise and vanilla wafers ‘round the edge will win your highest praise.” While women felt obligated to prepare an elaborate dish worthy of their “kids, husbands, and guests,” they also had the freedom to experiment with Jell-O.

Pink Salad from Nash’s family’s recipe. Photo courtesy of the author.

While today, most of the United States has relegated Jell-O to hospital food and school lunches, Jell-O salad has remained a staple in the Midwest and the Mormon Corridor (including Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, California, Nevada, and Arizona). Salt Lake City, Utah and Des Moines, Iowa have both claimed the highest Jell-O consumption in the nation. In these regions’ traditionally church-centered communities, people need something easy, cheap, and unique to share at potlucks. As the Jack and Mary Jell-O Book from 1937 says, “‘Why is Jell-O like a woman taking a package of raisins to Europe?’ ‘It makes a little fruit go such a long way.’” The array of flavors and ingredients distinguish one woman’s recipe from another. The Des Moines Register wrote in 2015, “In Iowa, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Lutheran or Methodist church cookbook without a hefty section of Jell-O salads.”

My mom told me that my great-grandma passed around recipes with her friends and occasionally one would become all the rage. This is what happened with our family favorite Jell-O salad, made with cherry Jell-O, Cool-Whip, cream cheese, canned pineapple, and canned cherries. For years, my great-grandma cooked this salad for family reunions, and, for lack of a better name, my cousin christened it Pink Salad. My friends see Pink Salad as an anachronistic Midwestern oddity, but long after Jell-O’s heyday, I recognize my great-grandma’s ingenuity and load my plate high with the pink stuff on Thanksgiving.

Eleanor Nash ’21 (enash) tried to make Pink Salad while abroad but sadly couldn’t find the ingredients. From the September/October 2020 issue.