Vintage Recipe Roulette Re-set: My grandmother's raw cranberry Jell-O salad

But before the Barbenheimer behemoth: Chicken Noodle Soup Salad.

Have a jale, jobbly Christmas.

I love all kinds of vintage recipes, but nothing really holds a candle to the gelatin salads of yesteryear. I’ve written pretty extensively about it already — about the Jell-O Renaissance here, and about four vintage holiday gelatin salads here, both for the TODAY Show’s online Food section. Still, I feel I’ve only scratched the surface. And I’ve got good reason to keep digging…for the second year running, I’ve scored an invitation to Susie Hamilton’s annual Aspic Invitational.

Last year, I made this Chicken Noodle Soup Salad.

Chicken Noodle Soup Salad gelatin molds with condensed tomato glaze, seen here plotting world domination.

I regret to inform you that it is lemon Jell-O mixed with condensed chicken noodle soup, mayonnaise, and whipped cream, and then iced with lemon Jell-O mixed with condensed tomato soup. This is a real recipe, reprinted from a community cookbook in a fave collection of mine, Retro Food Fiascos, by Kathy Casey. My only creative contribution was to make it in individual molds instead of the original cut squares. It was 100% hideous — softly gelatinous chicken goop interspersed with softly glutenous noodles, and punctuated by jarringly crisp green onions. If adding undiluted condensed tomato soup improves a thing? You know it’s bad.

I’m skimming recipes to find just the right one, and there are so many possibilities. I’d love to make the gelatin and mayo-iced pâté SpongeBob house, but it’s only tangentially-related to aspic, alas.

Retro Food Fiascos includes this upsetting recipe for glazed crud in the shape of a everyone’s favorite pizza topping.

I could do Try and Guess Salad (raspberry gelatin, horseradish, Tabasco, sour cream, and…stewed tomatoes!), or even the outrageously savory, vinegar-ed within an inch of its life Perfection Salad, but instead, I’m thinking about doing something truly radical.

I just might try to make something not just edible, but delicious.

As much fun as I make of vintage recipes, what I’m really having fun exploring is how food trends and fashionable flavors, even the ones we have now, are totally arbitrary and mutable. Someday, your grandkids will be laughing until they cry over Instant Pot lasagna and air fryer bananas (they’re delicious, I swear!). And that’s a beautiful thing — it’s a little nuts, but also a thread running through our lives and heritage. It’s a time machine, a family tree, and a carnival sideshow all in one.

So, if our current “modern” tastes are subject to change, shouldn’t we be able to mold them as we choose (wink, wink)? I think I can do this!

In thinking about Jell-O that I’ve not just tolerated but enjoyed, one stands quivering head and shoulders above the rest: my grandmother’s cranberry relish salad. I dug around in my recipes, though, and I don’t seem to have it written down anywhere, so I went to the internet. There are hundreds of examples online, with the most common versions using any red Jell-O with cranberry sauce, oranges, pineapple, and nuts. That’s not exactly what I remembered, but I gave it a shot on Thanksgiving this year. It tasted okay, but it’s not what my mom remembers, either — we distinctly recall a dark red mold, chopped raw cranberries, nuts, and celery, and sometimes she put a cream cheese layer on the bottom. There are some sort of along those lines around, but none with cream cheese, and they usually have pineapple, which hers definitely did not have.

I’ve concluded that she made up her own recipe, as grandmas and other masters of craft are wont to do. So, I am re-creating it to the best of my ability…with a little modern twist.

I was remembering today her ever-present bottle of Trappey’s Peppers for collard green purposes. She didn’t put spicy stuff in very many things, but it did have its place for her, and it definitely has its place for me. No matter what I’m eating, I feel cheated if my lips don’t burn for half an hour. So, I’m adding bit of candied jalapeño!

Here’s the recipe:

Christmas Cranberry Chaos

• 1 6-oz package cranberry (or cherry, or raspberry) Jell-O

• 2 1/2 c cranberry juice cocktail, divided

• 6 oz. Neufchatel or cream cheese, softened

• 3/4 c finely chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, or almonds)

• 1 1/2 c finely chopped raw cranberries

• 1/2 c finely diced celery

• 1 T finely chopped candied jalapeños or jalapeño relish

Bring 2 c of the juice to a boil. Add gelatin and stir for 2 minutes or until fully dissolved. In order to keep it sturdy for molding, this recipe uses a more concentrated gelatin:liquid ratio. If you cut corners with stirring, you will get a cursed, teeth-stretching polymer skin on the top of your mold, and you will deserve it.

Add the Neufchatel to a small mixing bowl, and SLOWLY add 3/4 c of the hot gelatin, mixing well so that there are no white streaks. Set aside at room temperature, covered, lest the cat get into it while your back is turned.

Add the remaining 1/2 c of juice (cold) to the rest of the hot gelatin, and stir. Pour about 1/2 c into a very lightly oiled 4-cup volume gelatin mold, and place the mold in an ice bath on a level surface. It should be starting to firm within 10 minutes. Transfer to fridge.

Now put the remaining gelatin in a bowl in the ice bath, adding ice if necessary. When it jiggles delightfully with a thin jelly-like consistency, add the remaining ingredients and stir to incorporate. This whole ice bath thing may seem complicated, but it lets you buy one 6 oz. package of gelatin to make all the layers, instead of two 3-oz. ones made sequentially so the cream cheese one is still liquid when it needs to be poured, and that saves you a whole dollar, plus you only have to boil juice once.

Gently spoon the chaos layer on top of the plain gelatin already in the mold, and return the mold to the ice bath. After a few more minutes, it should be firm enough to pour the cream cheese mixture on top carefully, without causing, you know, more chaos. Put the mold in the refrigerator and chill until very firm, at least 4 hours or overnight.

When ready to serve, dip the mold into hot water for 3-5 seconds, and invert onto plate…if you’re lucky.

My cranberrypalooza graciously emerged in one, mildly upsetting piece.

Sounds easy; takes practice! I have clear memories of helping my grandmother coax gelatin out of a mold at the holidays, and I’m thrilled this one came out. Look at it glistening in the morning light, ripe with promise. Let’s taste!

Sliced, it is a real horror show, with the shadow of the knife at left, and the devil’s stained glass effect on the right. But how does it taste?

Hark, the herald angels sing, and I’ve got her back, if only for a moment. The little spicy bite is me, but the rest is all her — it’s not too sweet, and the cream cheese is just the right tang. The mix-ins are so fine they are almost ground, and that makes it slice more cleanly, so that you don’t get those weird cavitated lime blobs with pineapple hanging out of them. I plan to cut them even more finely next time. I know raw cranberry sounds like it would make your face scrunch up and fold in on itself, but I promise it works. They’re still crisp, and next to the smooth cream cheese layer, it’s just lovely. It may look like a Barbenheimer behemoth, which is the literal opposite of my tiny and demure grandmother, but the flavor is perfect.

That’s what I love about these, really — that they hold love, honor, and hilarity in the same hand. I can’t really express what this ridiculous thing means to me.

I’m looking forward to seeing more holiday traditions, maybe with a little twist, from others this season. What are you cooking up?