Food In The Fort

I mentioned on the Cherry Clafouti recipe that I made for our book club’s dinner discussion of Sarah Vowell’s The Partly Cloudy Patriot that we met on Bastille Day (July 14th), thus the rustic French custard cake. Well, to tie in with the whole patriotic theme, Catherine made this red, white and blue jello that was absolutely the hit of the party. In fact, it’s safe to say that the jello, or rather the unmoulding of the jello, was the night’s entertainment. It stuck in the mould, so Catherine and our host Sophie tried running warm water over the mould, but to no avail. Then Sophie’s husband, the physicist, suggested strategically deforming the mould by squeezing on the edge. After much manipulation the bottom three layers disgorged themselves with a resounding plop!

I think it took another fifteen minutes for the final two layers to appear, but happily they all came out intact and more or less aligned with their recently liberated bretheren for Sophie and the rest of the guests to properly admire. Indeed, there was much ooh-ing and ah-ing over Catherine’s jiggly creation. It was quite the work of art. I’m sure Bill Cosby himself would have shed a tear at its sheer beauty.

While It’s hard to imagine the housewives of the ’50s and ’60s (when jello moulds were king) had this much fun, but it was worth the wait. And surprisingly delicious! The sour cream in the white layer made for a creamy, tangy counterpart to the sweet berry flavors. While I can’t see us making this very often, it was a thoroughly enjoyable creation. I know I have a lot more respect for gelatinous desserts after all this. Too bad we only have a crumby cell phone pic of the half-eaten jello to illustrate this recipe. Read the rest of this entry »