It's impossible to look through this 1977 Jello cookbook (from the General Mills folks), and not feel transported to a different time. A time when someone might spell your name in frosted alphabet cereal letters....
A time when fruits often hung suspended in sparkling red gelée...
A time when someone thought encasing a banana in jello and putting it on a stick was a really nifty trick.
This book reminded me of Pat Oleszko's contribution to an even earlier cookbook, my own Mmmmm (published in 1972). With the aim of serving her hospital-bound dad something completely without texture, we made several different kinds of jello, cut them into little 2-inch squares, and piled them into a wobbly haystack. This was followed by... really?... shredded wheat jello.Â