Say Jell-O to an old friend

Anne Hosier

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 9:42 a.m.

It wiggles and shimmers, comes in every color of the rainbow, and works well as either a dessert or an adhesive.

It can be cut into blocks, built into towers, molded into rings, mixed with vodka and poured into shot glasses.

It's turned up on tables from Seattle to Savannah, fed millions of school children and replaced mud in many a tavern's wrestling arena.

It's Jell-O brand gelatin, and if you haven't eaten it, you probably didn't grow up in America.

For much of the past century, Jell-O has been scorned by arbiters of haute cuisine and culture.

But now, the year after celebrating its 100th birthday, this ubiquitous substance is finally being hailed as a uniquely American cultural icon in an exhibit at the Lied Discovery Children's Museum.

"There's Always Room For Jell-O," which runs through March 13, traces the history of Jell-O from its invention in 1897 by a carpenter and cough medicine manufacturer in LeRoy, N.Y., to the introduction last year of its newest flavor, sparkling white grape.

Many cities passed up on the chance to host the exhibit, deeming it too commercial. But Lynne Belluscio, director of the LeRoy Historical Society and one of the creators of the exhibit, says that Jell-O's maker, Kraft Foods, Inc. had little to do with it, beyond donating $50,000 to the historical society for renovations.

"It's really about the uniqueness of an American product and its advertising," Belluscio says. By looking at the invention, history and marketing of a familiar product in the exhibit, and by engaging in the museum's "creativity workshops," offered on weekends and holidays, local kids can learn a lot about business, culture and physical science.

Along the way, they might also discover the answers to such pressing questions as: What is Jell-O? What makes it so popular and so American? And what else can we do with it besides eat it?

What is it?

Like many of us who wolfed down bowlfuls of the wiggly substance throughout our childhoods without ever stopping to consider what we were really eating, the kids in Sue Fink's "creativity workshop" seem unconcerned that one of their favorite foods doubles effectively as glue.

A peek inside the workshop finds them clamoring around a table where a coffee can simmers atop a portable burner, and paint the backs of their construction-paper cutouts with hot Jell-O. When dried, the substance resembles the adhesive on a postage stamp, says Fink, an arts and humanities educator at the museum, who is charged with dreaming up such projects.

"I like (Jell-O)," Kyle Bonar, 7, says as his dips his paintbrush into a plastic container of neon-colored liquid. The sharp, sweet smell of lime Jell-O fills the air.

"Mmmmm, that smells good. I wish they had some to eat," Stacey Hildebrand, 9, tells her mother.

"It's collagen," Fink says, referring to the protein that is extracted from the white connective tissues of stockyard animals. Similar to the ingredients used to make glue, the substance is responsible for giving Jell-O its jiggle.

"It's an old wives' tale that (gelatin) is made out of horses' hooves," Fink says.

Despite the origin of this key ingredient, though, Belluscio doesn't think gelatin is any less appetizing than, say, an egg -- "what's more disgusting than eating an egg?

"I think some people have an aversion to Jell-O because it's often the first solid food you can ingest when you're sick," she says. "But it's a comfort food for a lot of folks. It's a nostalgic food."

Fink agrees. In an open journal at the exhibit, in which visitors can record their "Jell-O stories," she remembers the women who would bring tuna casseroles, cottage cheese and Jell-O molds to church picnics in her native Minnesota.

"It seems like it's a staple," she says. "If you ask anyone over 30 or 40, they can tell you a Jell-O recipe."

Social molding

There was no electric refrigeration back in the days when Orator Francis Woodward, the founder of Genesee Pure Food Company, first bought the rights to Jell-O from the inventor, Pearl B. Wait, and began to market it. Since Jell-O didn't require chilling, it was the ideal convenience dessert of the era.

This didn't change after every household got their first Whirlpool appliance, however.

True to its gelatinous form, Jell-O simply adapted to suit the evolving needs and tastes of society.

Its marketing was cutting-edge, using the influential celebrities of the day, such as Jack Benny, Ethel Barrymore, Kate Smith, Andy Griffith, and the ever-popular Bill Cosby, as spokesmen for the product. Renowned artists, such as Maxfield Parish, Linn Ball, Guy Rowe (Giro) and Norman Rockwell were hired to create advertising. Says Belluscio: "Their advertising has always been at the forefront."

When immigrants arrived in the New World at Ellis Island, they were often greeted with a bowl of this quintessentially American food. Even today, "Jell-O is not really recognized abroad," Belluscio says.

The product has kept up with changing trends, with flavors such as celery, apple, peach, cola, coffee and chocolate, coming and going, while strawberry and lime continue to be mainstays.

During wartime, Jell-O was advertised as a dessert that required the use of few rationed products such as butter or flour, and could be easily assembled by most husbands.

"Having a little trouble Mac?" read a print ad from 1952, which featured a picture of a man with a perplexed expression staring blankly at a cookbook. "Buck up! You can still surprise the little woman and the kids with a swell Jell-O gelatin dessert. It's an absolute cinch to make ... "

Even today, Jell-O fits the bill by being a light, low-calorie dessert.

"The reason Jell-O's been around so long is because the marketing has always been so adaptable to what's going on," Fink says.

Adaptable substance

Ever since "Bluto," a character played by John Belushi, packed away a plate of Jell-O during a memorable scene in the movie "Animal House," people have remained fascinated by the myriad ways in which Jell-O can be used.

In New York, charities often hold Jell-O dives, in which participants must fish for a set of keys, or some other object, in a giant vat of the stuff, Belluscio says. School kids there often make Jell-O maps of the surrounding area. And here in Las Vegas, kids who attended a recent creativity workshop at the museum got to build towers out of Jell-O blocks, or "jigglers."

Several years ago, researchers even hooked up an EEG to a plate of lime Jell-O to show that the dish registered a pattern of brainwaves that was virtually identical to that of a healthy adult.

But don't try to use it in your hair.

During a recent trip to Los Angeles, Belluscio learned from a group of punk rockers that the Jell-O brand of gelatin doesn't work on their spiked locks.

Yet Bellusicio says she still believes: "There really is always room for Jell-O."