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It’s finally here! Welcome to the Retro Gelatin Dare Part II, known more playfully as Knoxapocalypse II. I can’t believe I was up for this after the total and utter disaster that was Liver Pate En Masque from the first Gelatin Dare. It was a dark, dark day for gelatin dishes everywhere, let me tell you.

But, true to form, when I saw a tweet suggesting another gelatin dare, I couldn’t reply “yes” fast enough.

And then I got my assignment.

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Pickle and Pineapple Salad.

And I started to really, really think about deleting my Twitter account.

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Pickle and Pineapple Salad
Ingredients
  • 1 T gelatine (1 pkg unflavored gelatin)
  • 1/2 cup cold water
  • 1/2 cup boiling water
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup chopped almonds
  • 1/2 cup canned pineapple, chopped
  • 1/2 cup stuffed olives, sliced
  • 1/2 cup sliced sweet pickles
  • 1/4 t salt
  • Green food coloring, “used with restraint”
Instructions
  1. Soak gelatine in cold water for about five minutes: dissolve in boiling water and add lemon juice, sugar, salt and coloring.
  2. When this mixture begins to thicken, add remaining ingredients. Pickles should be sliced thin.Turn into wet individual molds.
  3. When firm, unmold on lettuce and serve with mayonnaise. Serves six.

 

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If you are curious about the Retro Gelatin Dares, here is how they go:

Yinzerella from Dinner Is Served 1972 gets bored. So she sends a tweet to Mimi (1972: The Retro WW Experiment), Brian (Caker Cooking) and me saying that we all need to get together and make something scary with gelatin so she isn’t so bored anymore.

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And immediately our collective good sense flies out the door, and we send crazy tweets back and forth to get up enough courage to say “count me in”. Once we all agree to the madness we get nervous, so we recruit other bloggers and force them to do it with us, just so we don’t seem so crazy. (Hi Jenny, Erica and Susie!)

Then we retreat into our stacks and stacks of vintage cookbooks to pull out a horrible gelatin recipe that we have been eyeballing for a while but have been too scared to make ourselves or are curious about how it tastes. Then everyone sends their entries to me and I pick numbers randomly to see who gets assigned what gelatinous horror.

I usually get one of the more gross ones. It is pretty much a rule, I think.

Then I make it. Then I set it in front of Tom.

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And he looks at me.

“Really? What the heck is this? Is that mayo?”

“I promised a bunch of people you don’t know that I would force you to eat something gross. And yes, that is mayo.”

“Seriously? Is this another one of those things?”

“If by “those things” you mean a vintage recipe swap done between fellow bloggers for the purpose of research, then yes, this is one of those things.”

“You just like to take pictures of me eating disgusting gelatin.”

“That too.”

Tom TastesIMG_3081

“What is in this?”

“The usual crap. Olives, pineapple, pickles. I think there are some almonds in there.”

“Because this actually tastes…good. Somehow.”

“What!?!?”

“I swear. Taste it!”

“Jeez. You’re right.”

The Verdict: Good For An Unknown Reason

From The Testing Notes:

Against unbelievable odds, this thing actually tasted good. I have no idea how, because the last time we had gelatin with pineapple and olives it was disgusting. But the pickle and olive gelatin was a step up from that, so it might have been the sweet pickles (I bought a really good brand). It also might have been the fact that the lemon gelatin was made from scratch rather than using a box, thus eliminating the fake flavoring and loads of sugar. Either way, this WAS good. It lacked that horrible gag factor that usually comes when you put olives in gelatin. It was mind boggling. This proves that all gelatin recipes must be tested before being judged gross!

CHECK OUT THE OTHER GELATIN ODDITIES FOR THE RETRO DARE!

Dinner is Served 1972: Olive Wreath Mold

Retro Recipe Attempts: Betty Davis’s Mustard Ring

Caker Cooking: Maple Fluff

1972: The Retro WW Experiment: Molded Avocado and Tuna

Bittersweet Susie: Melon Mousse

Sliverscreen Suppers: Turkey In Aspic

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