My Grandmother's Recipes and the Horror of Lime Jello Salad

So I have in my possession lots of handwritten recipes that were originally in my maternal Grandmother's possesion.  She and her sister Mazie exchanged recipes for probably their entire lives and many of the recipes I have are in Mazie's handwriting.

Every one who knew their mother, Cornelia, talks about the amazing food she put on the table, especially the baking, so I was interested to see what kind of old family recipes would turn up.

There are definitely a few, but then something else reared its ugly head.

Something horrible.

Something from the past.

Something....

Green.

go ahead, make it, I dare you:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/i-love-my-pear-salad/

You know what I'm talking about - those molded jello salads that came into fashion after the Atomic Age.  Did people feel like they were in control of their molded, brightly colored food?  I don't know but I do know it was an evil trend.

It all came flooding back when I found this:

That's my mother's handwriting.  How could she?  And no, they never put in the pecans.

Mommy how could you

Why is Lime Jello Salad so evil you ask?

Let me count the ways:

1. It's florescent green and food the color of one of my college highlight markers is just wrong.

2. It's lime flavored.  Sorry, the only place where put lime flavoring is:

      a.  in the air around the top of my gin and tonic and then placed gently
           into the garbage disposal to give it that citrus tang, or,

      b. in the coconut.


That's it!  Sorry, lime is NOT a dessert flavor and my family, the WOMEN of my family tried to pass this sorry spectacle of congealed gelatin off as a dessert.

A dessert!

Lime jello by itself is enough of an affront, but then they added

Cream Cheese

and

Pears


So now, as a child, I was much more particular than I am now.  Today I'll try mostly anything, unless its the entire animal on the plate, looking at me, or if I have to use metal tools to break open the outer exoskeleton, but that's another story....

Back then I enjoyed my flavors s e p a r a t e.  My foods did not touch on my plate.  I consumed one food at a time, in order of least liked to most liked.  Sorry, those were the rules, can't deviate.  I'm much better now.  :-D  (And this is what plays in my head when I say those words)

And here these women who were supposed to be nurturing me were mooshing up cream cheese and lime jello and jamming big chunks of pears of all things all together.  And putting delicious fluffy Cool Whip on the plate where the pear juice would touch it and ruin it.

Then, just to be mean, they used the bundt pan as a mold to remind you that it wasn't cake, it was as far from cake as anything ever was.

Oh man, it was bad.  And they'd make me eat it.  Ugggggggh, I feel sick just thinking about it.

I still dislike any kind of citrus flavoring in my desserts, now I know why.  I refused to eat cream cheese until I was 20, now I know why.  And limes weren't part of my life until 2007, NOW I KNOW WHY!  What hath you wrought Mommy!!!  :-D


So anyway, I got over my disgust and kept on scanning.

And then, not only did I find that recipe written out again, but then a third time, both in my grandmothers handwriting.  You know what that means.  When you have a recipe multiple times, hand written, you used it a lot.  I do that now with my print-outs.

Here's the kicker though - this one includes......PEAS!!!!!!!!!!!

Peas?

Cream cheese, lime, pears, and PEAS?

Did they make me eat this at every gathering?  Is this why big swaths of my childhood are missing from my memory?  How was this even legal?


Then I find this in the loose recipes:

Do you see how old this is?

This is PRE-ZIP CODES!  That means 1963!  I checked!

No really, my grandmother saved this for 50+ years, you need to look at this, just look at it:

*urp*

People ate this!  Someone invented it in a test kitchen!  What the heck is that thing in the bottom left?  There's carrots in there and layers!  And at the top, those are olives in there!  It's called RING AROUND THE TUNA!  Oh my god, I can't believe it.  Ohhhhhh I'll never be able to eat my little cherry jello squares again!

Ooooooooh man.  I really don't like lime jello.  :-D