It's not technically a congealed salad I don't think because we don't mold it, but a pistachio jello concoction with pineapple and nuts and marshmallow and whipped cream and crap (not technically crap but...crap.) MIL introduced it to our house.
ETA: Maybe it is congealed since it looks like the green one with the nuts thing in the right column below.
I don't get how this is a salad. We asked MIL to bring a salad to Easter last year, thinking she would bring a salad with, well, lettuce and other veggies. Nope, opaque jello with pineapple chunks. Blargh!
Yeah, with my in laws, you have to specify that you want a "green salad" vs a "salad"
YES! So much this. It is even more funny because we don't have to do that with my parents, just MIL. And we are all midwesterners, which seems to be the home of the congealed salad. Even my mom gave MIL a bit of a side eye when she said she brought salad and it was the jello crap.
We call our ambrosia pink salad. It's cottage cheese, a tub of cool whip, strawberry jello powder, and mandarin oranges and pineapple, all mixed up. No nuts. It's delish.
My MIL grew up in Michigan and always makes what she calls blueberry salad. It's blueberries mixed with pecans and crushed pineapple in raspberry jell-o. The topping is sour cream mixed with cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract with pecans sprinkled on top. I don't know why it is called a salad. It's pretty tasty, though.
I grew up in Wisconsin, and there were definitely jell-o molds present at all family events. Nothing like that, though.
I don't know if it's considered a congealed salad, but my mom makes seafoam salad b/c my aunt (who has passed away) always did.
It is yummy, but I don't love it with Thanksgiving foods necessarily. She makes a version without mayonnaise b/c jello + mayo is absolutely disgusting (imo).
My mother loves to make lime jello with celery and carrots in it, which I have all of my life refused to touch. She does have the good sense not to serve that shit for a holiday dinner though-it was just a personal treat for her.
Also, this seems like an excellent place to drop a section of my favorite website in the entire universe: lileks.com/institute/gallery/knox/
I suppose our family's cranberry salad is a congealed salad. It's cranberry jello with ground cranberries and oranges plus pecans on the inside. No dairy in sight, though.
All I know is that many older Germans that I know consider this a delicacy
It looks like straight up barf.
Old ladies at my grandma's church used to make jello salad what not. I never saw not one person eat it. The only way I would eat something like congealed salad is if there was absolutely nothing else and I was dying of hunger.
If we were at my in-laws jello salad would certainly be present.
At my family no. But we do often have a dish that is marshmallows, fruit, and sour cream and called a fruit salad. But no jello or congealing is involved. And we didn't have it this year.
Post by anastasia517 on Nov 26, 2015 23:09:07 GMT -5
Definitely not. But maybe this is one of the things we miss out on with early Thanksgiving... no parade, no wait-on-Christmas-stuff-until-after-Thanksgiving, and no jello "salad".
I am a Midwesterner. I have heard about these "salads" once in my life and it was from my SIL explaining how her boss requested his sister make it every time they went back to his hometown. His included shredded cheese and mayo. SIL's working theory was that it was a way for their mother to cheaply get calories into her kids during the Depression.
The only salads we ever had at family functions were made of lettuce, potato, or fruit (as in a giant bowl of completely undressed cut fruit).
I think my grandmother just called it strawberry jello salad or something. So good. Just a strawberry jello packet, a little hot water, heavy cream, marshmallows and strawberries. It's creamy and dessert-like. Not jello-like.
We ate it growing up at my grandma's. Green or arrange jello with shredded carrot, iceberg lettuce and green olives suspended inside. No, I may get maudlin about holidays past, but no one should be brought that low by nostalgia.
Post by spellingbea on Nov 27, 2015 17:10:23 GMT -5
I have some leftover ambrosia salad in the fridge that my MIL lovingly packed up for me in an empty Cool Whip tub, lol. It's delicious. Growing up, we always had Watergate salad (fluffy pistachio deliciousness) at Thanksgiving/Christmas, and strawberry pretzel salad on the 4th of July. I love it all.
Hell no to mayo and vegetables in Jello, though. Fucking olives and celery suspended in a bowl of jiggly shit? No ma'am.
My mother in law always does some kind of congealed salad at every holiday (Christmas, Easter, 4 of July). I eat a bite or two to be polite, but I don't enjoy it. I don't *hate* it, but it just isn't worth the stomach real estate on holidays where there is other amazing food to be had. It took awhile to get used to because nobody in my family would dare have something like that. I'd always attributed it to her age (shes in her mid 70s).
Yesterday we had friendsgiving (my husband is deployed so a bunch of families from his squadron got together and brought dishes). Someone from Missouri brought a congealed salad and she's 24. LOL. So I stand that it must be totally midwest to make/eat this stuff (my MIL is from Ohio). I thought it was generational, but it must be regional too.
And as sweet as her jello red concoction was - it still wasn't worth it when there were sweet potatoes, stuffing, ham, turkey, and pie around.
I have some leftover ambrosia salad in the fridge that my MIL lovingly packed up for me in an empty Cool Whip tub, lol. It's delicious. Growing up, we always had Watergate salad (fluffy pistachio deliciousness) at Thanksgiving/Christmas, and strawberry pretzel salad on the 4th of July. I love it all.
Hell no to mayo and vegetables in Jello, though. Fucking olives and celery suspended in a bowl of jiggly shit? No ma'am.
LOL! Do we have the same MIL? She loves to save Cool Whip containers (and basically any spreadable butter container) to hold her leftovers. I've been meaning to get her a glass food storage container set for years.
LOL! Do we have the same MIL? She loves to save Cool Whip containers (and basically any spreadable butter container) to hold her leftovers. I've been meaning to get her a glass food storage container set for years.
Lol, my mom kept at least a dozen Country Crock tubs at the ready for all leftover situations. She even used them to make iced tea in the microwave. I was doomed way before anyone even heard of BPA.
My grandmother is from the south and makes what she calls a jello salad. It is green or pineapple jello with shredded carrots, pineapples, cottage cheese on the inside. Made in a mold.