Perhaps jelly is the remedy?
I am craving some joy. I suspect we all are. Just a little. Not an ‘ignoring the ills of the world and laughing in the face of other’s lot’, type joy, but just a momentary ‘pause and have a little giggle to oneself’, type joy. I think we can all allow ourselves that occasionally.
I’ve been considering 90’s birthday cakes, specifically those from a wonderful little book called ‘The Australian Women’s Weekly Cake Book’ which (troublingly gendered title aside) was responsible for some of the most joy-inducing food moments of my life, let alone my childhood.
The first birthday cake I remember (I’m guessing it might have been my fifth birthday,) was a swimming pool cake. It was constructed from a simple chocolate sponge which was iced with chocolate buttercream, edged in chocolate fingers, hollowed out and then filled with icy blue jelly. The photo below would suggest filling the pool with relaxing figures, but I recall my cake having a diving board, swimmers, and maybe a race in progress.
My birthday is in the middle of the summer holidays, but by the time I returned to school in September people were still talking about this cake. It even got the seal of approval from Tom Maberley, a boy three years above me and the best swimmer in the school. It’s fair to say I requested the same cake the following year. As with all these things, you can’t bottle magic, the zeitgeist had moved on.
I’ve been worrying this week about money. I’ve got a gas bill I can’t afford; my reliable triumvirate of the greengrocer, Aldi and Oddbox are all teasing up their prices as their margins get squeezed; I can barely afford to heat my home or fill my car, and yet, I’m aware that I am at the privileged tip of the precarious game of Kerplunk that we call society in Britain, so I am petrified about how bad this could get. It’s only going to take about one more round of the bellends in parliament pulling out the little sticks that hold everything in place and all the marbles are going to go everywhere. I mean, who am I kidding, we’re there already, aren’t we? The marbles have gone, and the game is over.
And yet, as I navigate the weekly schedule of cooking and eating on an ever-tightening budget, my tastes and cravings have leant towards things cheering, celebratory, joy-inducing and fun. Deeply worrying as the world is, stretched as I am, I find that more and more I’ve been thinking about jelly.
It’s fallen out of favour, jelly. And it’s no surprise. It serves no purpose in terms of nutrition, it’s an addendum, a novelty. And it takes no skill, right?
Jelly was once the happy preserve of the children's party, but I’ve attended enough friends’ and family’s kid's parties to have observed for certain that it’s off the menu, as is much of the carefree fun-food of my childhood. Take children’s birthday cakes, they are now multi-layered and tasteful, informed by Violet Bakery or Lilly Vanilli more than they are the cake book of my youth. You’re more likely to hear little Miles and Ginny arguing over falafel or the last morsel of babaganoush than you are party rings, hula hoops or mini pizzas. And I can tell you without hesitation that the little nippers of today are not being afforded the sheer joy of a bowl of bright red jelly and fast-melting vanilla ice cream.
Maybe we need to give jelly another chance. If we stop and think about it, jelly could be the perfect balm for our times. We can, and definitely should, rail against the ills of the world; we can, and definitely should consider the planet and our impact on it when it comes to travel and our consumption; we can, and definitely should, eat better, shop better, cook better; but also we can, and definitely should, allow ourselves the occasional and momentary luxury of not worrying about it all, of not being virtuous in everything we do. Everyone can enjoy jelly.
The thing about jelly is that its superpower is also its kryptonite. It is not a technique that was invented to preserve food, it is not fermenting or picking or brining or smoking, all techniques that have enjoyed their heyday in the Instagram age. It is not a way to eat better or more healthily, so the wellness crew haven’t taken ownership. It offers nothing in the way of hacks so no one has made it TikTok famous.
And yet, having spent a few days trying to make and photograph various jellies, I’m here to tell you that jelly is more complex than one might imagine. Jelly does take some care and consideration to get right, jelly does require some focus. Creating a beautiful and delicious jelly is no mean feat. Getting it right should be a badge of honour. I mean consider my pitiful attempts below:
The truth is that jelly was always a flex. It was always a display of wealth. The laborious process of extracting natural gelatin from calves’ trotters meant it was linked to status and largesse, the preserve of Kings and Queens and people who lived in large country houses. People who had little to worry about and so instead spent their time creating joyful displays out of jelly. Hence Grandma’s collection of jelly moulds, a hangover from a time when producing a jelly meant something, said something about you. So then what happened? Who ruined jelly? Who designated jelly as a novelty?
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