As many of you know, I love the kid-favorite classic, JELL-O. Something about that jiggly dessert that puts me back a mere 50 cents has been known to bring me great joy on many an occasion. Now tie this in with the Mormon culture. It's an ongoing joke about how we have found every possible way to make Jello salad unique, especially with things that the normal person would probably never consider using, like shredded carrots...a classic example. Some of these "concoctions" have turned out to be interestingly good*, but nevertheless, no matter how much we say "It's a mormon thing", I must correct this. IT'S A UTAH THING! Seriously, growing up in AZ, we had an unlimited supply of Jello Salad at every ward function, which I personally loved. But I never had a jello salad that I was afraid to try. The worse thing was that maybe there would be a silly sister that would put walnuts in it, and then I was done with said salad. But usually, it was a box of Jell-O, a can of fruit cocktail/peaches/pears, and if you really wanted to get fancy, Cool Whip on top.
Then I went to Utah this past week for Eddie's Grandmother's funeral. At the family luncheon afterwards, we (naturally) were presented with a plethora of jello salads. I was thrilled! I previewed the assortment laid before me, served up one that looked like the aformentioned typical mix, served up a similar looking one to Lexi, then stopped. There was a side dish in front of me that I thought was funeral potatoes (no pun intended), mainly by the light orange color, a creamy top, and the shredded cheese on top of that. Upon closer inspection, I discovered this too was another jello salad. With cheese. okkkkayyyy....so I grabbed some. Then there was one more that I saw and thought, "oooh this one has berries, I'll give Lexi some" and so I did. As we're sitting with out two servings each, I taste the orange colored stuff...yeah, not too bad, but you can taste the cheese. And it did not ADD to the goodness; it distracted the eater from what would have been an otherwise pleasant jello experience. I taste Lexi's first bunch...the typical jello/fruit/cool whip combo...I can handle that. I go for my first selection, and what is this? It's got a trippy texture of...shredded apples and orange rind! Odd, never would've thought of that, but altogether, another tasty adventure. (In my head, I'm thinking "Ha! Only in Utah!") Then I was excited to try this berry one...it had cool whip in the middle, so it HAD to be good. I take a big spoonful and Eech! What the crap! That white stuff was NOT cool whip...in fact, it was anything BUT sweet. It was sour cream, ladies and gentleman. 100%, not mixed with anything to make it taste remotely good with jello, sour cream! It was NASTY! The sacred name of JELL-O was desicrated. I didn't know at first what I had put into my mouth. At first, I thought, Mayonaisse? No. I waited for some sweetness to kick in, but it only got worse. I had to spit it out and shovel down some of my left over ham sandwich to cleanse my palette (which, interestingly enough, didn't have mayo since these lovely Utah sisters thought it wise to combine all the mayo with mustard...like that's normal? For convenience?).
Who in their right minds would put that in such an otherwise delicious mixture of jello and fruit? And then I remembered...I'm in flippin' UTAH... (which explains the "in their right minds" part) (just kidding) (sorta...)
I will now be much more cautious about what gelatinous confections I partake of while visiting this state (of mind). I would've taken shredded carrots over that any day.
* Eddie's Stepmom made the above pictured dessert, consisting of Jello, Cool Whip mixed with cream cheese, bananas and strawberries and blueberries, and pretzels. Yes, pretzels. She was born and raised in Utah, can you tell?
