Monday, December 15, 2008

Monday, Monday - Blah Blah Blahdee Blahda

Where does all the time go? I've actually been pent up, and ready to write a blog for quite some time now. Being that it has been in the negative below zero temperature range for awhile now. Now that I'm here, ready to experience bloggerrhea, I can't quite work it out.

The churning, and anxiousness is there, but avast ye hearties, t'is still just a blank canvass.

So - I remember when I lived in Minnesota, Plymouth actually; I was semi-bored one night, while I was making telephone calls to verify appointments. Several of my calls were received by answering machines. This one couple that I had gotten to know fairly well, was not home or taking calls, and the answering machine did its job. Instead of just leaving a normal message, like any other normal person would, I being a maverick of the north, and trendsetter - left a message alright, but it was a message containing the ingredients to Jell-O.

Apparently it was a big hit, and just like most folks in Minnesota, when amused by something, call over friends to share it. So there it was, my voice being broadcast to the neighbors, as if the family had just returned from a glorious summer-long vacation and were sharing all of the minute details with an accompanying slide show. I have it on good report that they did in fact also have a box of Jell-O handy to verify that I was indeed reading the ingredients. Just for the record: the list of ingredients on a box of strawberry Jell-O is sugar, gelatin, adipic acid (for tartness), less than 2% of artificial flavor, disodium phosphate and sodium citrate (to control acidity), fumaric acid (for tartness), and the colorant red 40.

Vegetarian BEWARE! BEWARE Vegetarian, for if you eat Jell-O or anything else containing gelatin, you are in fact. Eating. Animal by-products!!!! (Duhn! Duhn! DUHNNNNNN!)

Gelatin is basically processed collagen, which is a structural protein in animals' connective tissue, skin, and bones. Collagen also makes up about one-third of all the protein in the human body. Collagen is composed of glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline, as well as other amino acids.

Structurally, collagen is composed of three polypeptide chains that are wound together into an -helix--like three strands of spaghetti twisted together--and held together by hydrogen bonding. Collagen chains are also cross-linked by covalent bonds--important in food because as an animal ages, the cross-linking increases and its meat gets tougher. The tanning process also increases cross-linking and converts skin to leather.

When collagen is heated in water, the triple helix unwinds and the chains separate, becoming random coils that dissolve in water: That's gelatin. As the gelatin cools, the molecules try to regain the original helical structure and eventually bond together as they lose energy.

Gelatin molecules consist principally of repeating sequences of glycine-proline-hydroxyproline triplets, and bonding occurs at points along these strands, forming pockets that trap large amounts of liquid, resulting in a semisolid colloid. All colloids have a disperse phase and a continuous phase; that is, one substance is dispersed throughout another substance. In Jell-O, the disperse phase is solid gelatin and the continuous phase is water. Gelatin can absorb a tremendous amount of water--up to 10 times its weight.

According to the Gelatin Manufacturers Institute of America (GMIA), pork skin, cattle bones, and cattle hide are the predominant raw materials used to make gelatin. The raw materials are washed, soaked in acid or lime, and washed again several times. Then the materials are boiled several times to extract the gelatin. The gelatin is filtered, concentrated, chilled, and either cut into ribbons or extruded as noodles and dried. Once dried, the gelatin is ground into the required particle size, depending on its intended use. The final product is brittle, transparent, colorless, tasteless, and odorless.

Gelatin is used primarily in the food, pharmaceutical, and photographic industries. Most of the gelatin produced is consumed in gelatin desserts and confections such as marshmallows and gummy candies. It's also used as an emulsifier, stabilizer, or thickener in foods such as ice cream, sour cream, meat aspics, and cake frostings.
In the pharmaceutical industry, gelatin is used to make the outer shells for hard and soft capsules; it served as a blood plasma substitute during World War II. Gelatin is also used in preparing the silver halide emulsions in the production of photographic paper and film. According to GMIA, a brand-new application for gelatin is in the paint ball industry, which uses gelatin to construct paint balls.

According to "Jell-O: A Biography" by Carolyn Wyman (Harcourt, 2001), Jell-O had modest beginnings. Peter Cooper, inventor of the Tom Thumb steam locomotive and founder of Cooper Union College, took out the first U.S. patent for a gelatin dessert in 1845. Beyond obtaining the patent, Cooper did little with it. In 1897, Pearl B. Wait decided to enter the rapidly expanding packaged food business and focused on developing a fruit-flavored version of Cooper's gelatin. It was Wait's wife, May, who named it Jell-O, for reasons unknown today. She may have been referring to the way it had to jell before being eaten. The "O" was a popular ending for product names at that time. The first Jell-O flavors were raspberry, lemon, orange, and strawberry. Wait tried to sell Jell-O door-to-door, but he lacked the resources to market it properly.

Wait sold the Jell-O business in 1899 to Orator Woodward, a successful entrepreneur, for $450. Woodward's first-year sales of Jell-O were so poor that, after seeing stacks of unsold cases of Jell-O during a plant tour, he offered to sell the business to his plant supervisor for $35--and was turned down. But he increased advertising, and by 1902, Woodward had to double the size of his plant to keep up with demand for the quarter-million-dollar Jell-O business.

Wyman's book illustrates how Jell-O's culinary evolution paralleled changes in American society. It was marketed as a simple, inexpensive dessert to women in the early 20th century; as a way to stretch food during the Great Depression; as a convenient dessert when convenience foods were introduced in the 1950s; and as edible entertainment beginning in the 1990s. It's a testament to American ingenuity that Jell-O can also be used to make finger paint, dye your hair, clean the dishwasher, scrub the shower, and deodorize cat litter.

Here are some amazing but true facts about Jell-O that will amuse your friends and family:
  • Every day, an average of 758,012 boxes of Jell-O are purchased in the U.S.
  • As immigrants passed through Ellis Island, they were often served a bowl of Jell-O as a "Welcome to America" treat.
  • When hooked up to an electroencephalograph machine--an instrument that records the electrical activity of the brain--Jell-O demonstrates movement virtually identical to the brain waves of a healthy adult man or woman.
  • Fresh or frozen pineapple contains an enzyme that prevents Jell-O from setting. Canned pineapple can be used because the canning process eliminates the enzyme.


So - I think I have it all out of my system today folks. Hope it was fun!!!






"Now where did I put that . . . ? ? A-HA!! I knew it. Okay, I'm ready for our stroll!"

"I was thinking, maybe we could stop and feed the ducks along the way."

"Oh, that sounds lovely."

"We need to talk."




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jello?

Anonymous said...

Plymouth, huh? That's maybe 6 miles from me. How does one get from Plymouth to Wasilla?

Pearl

Anonymous said...

Gina - Yellow. Are we playing a rhyming game?

Pearl - Ayuh, Plymouth (and surrounding areas - so I probably have been in your town). I've been around MN - with Plymouth being the starting point, then I went to St. Paul, then to NE Minneapolis, then to Winona, off to Savage/Prior Lake, then resting in Mankato.

No I wasn't running from the law, but I was there for two year service program for my church.

Anonymous said...

Mellow, funny fellow.

(See, you, I can do it too!)

Anonymous said...

Bob, don't you know Utah is the Jello capital of the world and that I am a vegetarian who happens to LOVE Jello??

Thanks A LOT!!!!