I don't think I've had much to do with jelly making since my mother waved a dark green box of Rowntree's at me, the one with the picture of a big pile of fruit on it, and allowed me to separate out the gorgeously malleable cubes of jelly and stir in the boiling water. Equally it could have been Melba's Jelly, Viota Jelly Crystals (with the empty box designed to be an alphabet cube afterwards) and of course Chivers, the same as on my Dinky Trojan Van. But Rowntree's was the one I remember, another much-loved classic name now slowly disappearing from our pantry shelves. I don't know what prompted the bout of jelly making this morning- someone eating it on television I expect or more probably an airbrushed ad. in a 1950's Good Housekeeping magazine. Of course I've hung about for weeks trying to buy a metal mould, copper preferably, but could only find plastic, and none in the traditional almost architectural and archetypal shape so necessary for the Unmitigated Dessert. Then the Mother of My Children took pity and said "Oh for goodness sake" and brought round a carrier bag full of metal moulds. Youngest Son separated the Hartley's Jelly cubes (not sure if a raspberry had actually taken part in their manufacture) and stirred in the boiling water, gently carrying his own little rabbit mould to the 'fridge. What should also be heartening for Hartley's is just how quickly their bright pink box was incorporated into the castle being built in the living room.
Kelsale, Suffolk
2 days ago
13 comments:
Love old packets and tins. I have kept a few, but the clutter is mounting and I will have to throw them out. An old Oxo tin, a cigar tin, biscuit tins, a tin tea canister, a yellow Colman's Mustard tin. Maybe I should put them on Ebay, ,-) Love your blog. Eileen
Thankyou Eileen. I'm getting overwhelmed with old stuff. Even the flowers I've just bought are stuffed into a rusty Agricastrol Oil Jug. Where will it all end?
Having become a first time father of advanced age recently one of the little joys has been playing games with colour combos of jelly...I'd long forgotten how much fun it is.
Why was it that jelly was fine in its unadulterated form but became inedible as soon as school/Mum decided to embed a tin of mandarin segments - or, worse still, Fruit Salad - in it?
I always got to eat one of the concentrated cubes if I helped.
Interesting Jelly Points Sue. Apparently bits of mandarin etc. are used to delay the setting time, although since ours didn't really set until after eight hours, I can see no sane reason for this. But everyone I've spoken to about this gelatinous saga have all said they prefer to eat the naked cube, as it were.
Absolutely. The naked cube every time for me. More taste and instant gratification. (I like raw cake mix too, but I also like cakes so that's different, I suppose.)
As a boy I always thought that eating 'raw' food was somehow bad for you, in the same apochrypha as swallowed chewing gum turning to a stone in your stomach.
I think that yesterday's bogey men of tapeworms, stones and apple trees growing in your stomach have turned into today's listeria and salmonella scares...
Of course it's bad for you...it tastes good!
Raw jelly every time...supposed to make your nails strong too.
Ah so that's why I have to use tree loppers to do mine. And anyway, where have you been Jon?
Kernow, matey...blogette to follow.
I've been eating a lot of jelly recently; with evaporated milk, of course. Sadly, the reason I've gone jelly bonkers is the state of NHS dentistry. As I've still got five weeks to wait until I have six extracions under sedation, jelly is the only thing I really enjoy eating; that and co-codomol.
My dentist would argue that if I hadn't eaten so much jelly in the first place, my teeth might not have got into this state...
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