The magic of wobble // A short history of jelly. Part I
I used to think of jelly as a simple fruit puree or juice set with a few sheets of gelatin - a rather childish and slightly boring dessert or if American TV is to believed - a meal that is almost always eaten in a robe without any closures at the back. However when I started to learn more on the subject I soon discovered that is only the tip of the iceberg. Peter Brears in his book Jellies and Their Moulds has summarised the magic of jelly perfectly.
“Jellies are unique in the their range of physical properties. Although they are virtually tasteless, they can instantly absorb any chosen flavour […]. Having no texture of their own, they can take on those of creams, cereals, fruit purees, ground nuts and many other things […]. They can also be used to embed fresh, preserved or candied fruits, or stiff custards and other jellies of contrasting flavour and colour. Being colourless at the outset, they immediately take on the widest variety of tones, tinctures and degrees of opacity […]. They have no shape of their own, but take on the shape of any mould or vessel into which they are poured. This list of attributes is already impressive, but has yet to include their final most important and unique characteristics. The first of these is perfect transparency. No other food is so capable of allowing light to pass through it, reflected and refracted by the facets of its outer surfaces. The second is dynamic movement, the wobble factor, always a delight to the eye. The third, just as important, is their capacity to slowly release their flavours and textures into the mouth […], which otherwise would be much more rapidly swallowed.“
Jellies and Their Moulds by Peter Brears, p. 11 - 12
Anyone who has ever made a meaty soup from scratch most likely has also made a small amount of jelly. You might have noticed that once the stock has been cooled, it had jellified. In fact that is how the first jellies were made. The earliest recipes for jellies start to appear in the 14th century, where the medieval cooks would boil meat with spices and let the mixture set. However, the success of the dish would have depended on the type and cut of meat that was used. See to make jelly you need gelatin and that comes from collagen rich skin, feet and ears of suckling pigs and calves. The gelatin is released through heat, so to make jelly you need to heat up the feet and other bits in water and let them simmer for hours. Once the liquid is cooled down under certain temperature, it starts to solidify and turn into jelly. It took a very knowledgeable and skilful cook to successfully make a tasty jelly in the past.
A recipe for Ring-Around-the-Tuna jelly salad made with a packet of lime or lemon-lime Jell-O from Joys of Jell-O by General Foods Corporation from 1967.
Over time the jellies started to be clarified, strained and used in both sweet and savoury dishes. To be able to do this a highly advanced equipment called the jelly bag was needed through which you strained your jelly. But before you did that, often (at least in the 18th century cookbooks) you would have added egg whites, which would attract any impurities in the liquid and, after being strained a few times, leave a clear liquid behind. While, with the end of the medieval period savoury jellies lost their popularity, they did have their moments in the spotlight. For example, aspic, a jelly made from stock and studded with various things, including meat, fish, eggs and vegetables, gained its popularity in the 19th century or, if you can stomach it, Jell-o salad with tuna from the mid-20th century. You can still find savoury jellies on restaurant menus and in home kitchens under various names, galete, terrine, headcheese, brawn to name a few.
Sweet jellies on the other hand have never really gone out of fashion. They were flavoured with different spices, juices, wines, fruits and nuts and coloured in as many colours as one could manage. In was not uncommon to see jellies made into castles, coat of arms or other food stuffs. Sometimes jelly was made with pastry boarders, sometimes layered in a glass with contrasting jellies in texture and colour, sometimes unmoulded to reveal a familiar landmark or a symbol or cut to resemble different things. I have included a link below to a Historic Food webpage where you can see some of wonderful jelly recreations using period moulds.
Jelly for consumption (now know as tuberculosis). An interesting medicinal recipe from The Practice of cookery, pastry, pickling by Mrs. Fraser from 1791.
Jellies were quiet a labour intensive and expensive dish so obviously it became a sign of status that such a delicacy could be put on a table. Unfortunately in the medieval times the daily live was highly governed by the Catholic church and during various days of the year people were not allowed to eat, among other things flesh and that included jellies. At the time you could have boiled certain types and parts of fish until the liquid started to jellify, however the end result often could have been a weak and unpredictable jelly. Luckily a new and more effective source of gelatin emerged in the early 16th century in Europe. Isinglass is a pure form of gelatin made of swim bladder or sounds of fish (particularly sturgeon). It was very expensive and very sought after. Nowadays isinglass has fallen out of favour for jelly making and is mainly sold for beer and wine clarification (fining) and as a glue for book binding and conservation. It seems people are not interested in randomly recreating obscure, long forgotten cooking techniques and recipes out of curiosity. Shocking, but it is true. Trust me I have looked.
Hartshorn jelly from The Accomplished Housekeeper and Universal Cook by T. Williams from 1797
Another popular ingredient for jelly making was hartshorn. In the 17th century it started to appear in jelly recipes. For example, in France as Barbara Ketcham Wheaton notes it completely replaced both calves feet and isinglass as a source of gelatin. Hartshorn as the name suggest are shavings from the antlers of a young male deer. Interesting to note the even with the advent of commercial gelatin, hartshorn was still continued to be used for jelly making. Possibly it was partly do to a belief that if you would eat jelly prepared with it, you would gain certain characteristics of the deer. Other uses for hartshorn were as an early form of leavener (baking powder) and in production of ammonia for smelling salts.
Only with the advance of industrial revolution did industrial gelatin become a cheaper and more reliable for the coveted dessert. However much depended on the brand and strength of the gelatin. It was not unheard of for the end result to have an unpleasant smell or texture to it. In 19th century adulteration and other dubious practices cast a doubt on many factory made food, so some manufacturers turned to cunning advertising. For example, George P. Swinborne on his gelatine products published a praising report from leading chemists of the day.
Swinborne’s Isinglass Gelatin Advertisement. Source: eBay
Over the 19th and 20th centuries gelatin became more and more reliable and closer in quality to what we enjoy today. Today industrial gelatin is mainly produced from pork and cattle rind, bones and cartilage. However there are alternatives for vegetarians, but for that you might want to look for part two and three.
Sources
Brears, Peter, Jellies and their moulds, Prospect Books, 2010
Colquhoun, Kate, Taste. The History of Britain through its Cooking, Bloomsbury, 2007
Davidson, Alan, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, 3rd Edition, 2014
Fraser, Mrs, The Practice of cookery, pastry, pickling, 1791
General Foods Corporation, Joys of Jell-O. Gelatin dessert, White Plains, N.Y., 1967
Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham, Savouring the Past. The French Kitchen & Table from 1300 - 1789, Chatto & Windus, 1983
Williams, T., The Accomplished Housekeeper and Universal Cook, 1797
Interesting articles
Jellies, Jellies, Everywhere!
https://petworthhouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/jellies-jellies-everywhere.html (article published on 1st September, 2013, accessed on 2nd March, 2021)
Jelly, Flummery and Creams
http://www.historicfood.com/Jellies.htm (article accessed on 2nd March, 2021)
