New cookbook 'Jiggle!' aims to bring gelatin back in style
10:36 Share

Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. All right, we're pretty deep into the holiday season at this point, which means it's also treats season. And today we've got a cookbook for you right up that alley. It's called Jiggle by Peter DeMario and Judith Choate, and it's about jello. Now, in listening to this interview between Peter DeMario and here now is Deepa Fernandez, it's a little bit of a mystery.

It's clear that I'm doing Jell-O and gelatin a disservice by just relegating it to the world of treats. There are other savory routes you can take with gelatin. Now, if you're like me and your mind is jumping to the 70s craze when people were doing some wild things with the ingredient, well, maybe hearing DeMario talk about modernizing these recipes for today will change your mind. That's ahead.

This message comes from Energia, where everyone can invest directly in solar energy projects across the world's most profitable renewable markets. Since inception, Energia has helped investors realize a 12% return while earning steady monthly dividends.

It's a smart, impactful way to diversify outside the stock market with real assets. Learn more at Energia.com slash NPR. Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investments carry risk, including the potential loss of principal.

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Land's End Outfitters. Your brand is important and they create apparel your team will want to wear. Go to business.landsend.com slash pod 20 and use code pod 20 for 20% off your first product.

Gelatin was once trendy, in style, and nearly every gathering included a colourful, moulded jello salad. Remember them? Well, if you missed it, it's back. A new cookbook is called Jiggle, and it includes a whole range of recipes for sweet, savoury and layered gelatin dishes. And there are gelatin shots. It's written by Peter DiMario with Judith Choate. And

And Peter DiMario joins me now. Peter, hello, welcome. Hello, thank you so much for having me. So it's such a fun book. I feel like it's what we all need coming into the holidays. So thank you to you and Judith for bringing the fun back. And let's talk about how it came to be because you write in the introduction that the book came out of the past.

pandemic when you had time on your hands and you started experimenting with gelatin. I mean, you know, everybody else was getting an extra pet and a bicycle. You were experimenting with gelatin. Tell me why gelatin?

Well, I wish I had a perfect answer for you for that because I'm not exactly sure why gelatin. I mean, a lot of my friends were playing with breads and baking breads at home and banana breads and sourdough breads. And I just kind of got fascinated by gelatin. It started out as more of an aesthetic thing. I was really curious to play with color and shapes and how to suspend things in the gelatin and make it look beautiful. And it just kind of spiraled. I started to realize that

You know, I could make really beautiful flavors outside of the artificially flavored gelatin that we all kind of grew up with in my age anyway. And that's really kind of it. I think when we think gelatin, we think jello or as we in Australia say, jelly. But what is gelatin, Peter? What is the main ingredient here?

So gelatin, I mean, there's a lot of different agents that can be used to make gelatin. Primarily, it's made from animal products that are cooked down to create a gel substance. In the Victorian era, when it was originally created, it was for the super wealthy, because obviously they're the only people that have access to meat and byproduct. Now you can pretty much get it anywhere. I generally tend to use prepackaged

powder gelatin, like a Knox gelatin that you could find anywhere. It's very easy to use. It's very easy to find. But that's kind of the basis of most of the recipes in the cookbook. Yeah. And let's be clear here for folks. So that really, it's not about going and buying that box of jello that you add water and mold. This is about making your own. There's also a vegan alternative, Peter. Agar, agar. What's that? Yeah.

Yeah. So agar agar is, um, like you said, it's a vegan gelatin substance and it's a derivative of seaweed actually. So it works the same as gelatin. The, the balance is a little off. So I do recommend that anybody that's going to start experimenting with it to make sure you test, uh, the different quantities because it is a little bit different than standard powder gelatin, but it's a great vegan alternative. And I do use that in a couple of recipes as well. Okay. I'm told pancreatic,

Peter, that Jell-O was a thing in the 1970s. I was way too little and wasn't here in America. Why was gelatin so popular then? And why do you think it fell out of fashion? Well, I also was too young for the 70s gelatin craze. But it did become super popular. In doing research for this book, of course, I look back to some of these recipes and some of these cookbooks from that era. And it honestly blew my mind what people were doing with gelatin. And I

I don't know why it came into fashion, why it was so popular, but it was definitely a thing and it was definitely weird. People were using really strange ingredients. They were calling it jello salads and they were putting savory items into lime gelatin with tuna and cottage cheese and all these wild things that we would never even think of using now.

Okay, but I have to say you've taken that because you have a recipe in your book that involves leeks and potatoes, which is kind of makes me think of leek and potato soup, which then involves salmon. And I mean, that blew my mind that you could make a jello creation that way. Yeah, I mean, part of when we were developing this book, we really wanted to make sure that it wasn't all just the standard sweet

sweet gelatins that people are familiar with. The challenge there was how do you take some of those old recipes and flavors and modernize them for today's palate? And I think we worked really hard to make that happen. The dish you're talking about does use gelatin, but it's not the way that you would think. These items aren't floating in a sea of clear gelatin. Gelatin is kind of used as an agent to keep everything together in this beautiful, almost terrine-looking dish. Yeah, it's layered. And I mean, it looks so delicious, it's hard to imagine

gelatin or it's a jello dish. It's a savory dish. There's another dish, ambrosia. That's still a staple in some families. Give us your recipe for grandma's ambrosia. Sure. Yeah, this was a recipe that was always popular with my family. My grandmother always made it for different parties. It was always a staple. And I wanted to find a way to

do it in a mold so that it was something that you could serve as a traditional jello mold, but using the same flavors that she used. So, you know, it still has that beautiful coconut flavor. There's pineapple in it. There's coconut flakes and marshmallows. It's all these things that are so delicious and work so well together. And it also just looks really fun. And it's definitely one of the most nostalgic dishes in the cookbook.

What I appreciate about this cookbook, Jiggle, which, folks, is just so fun, is that there are really simple tips like the mold. How do you get it out of the mold, your beautiful creation? How do you layer? You know, and I think these things kind of seem hard, but the way you lay it out, it's not so hard. Talk to me about the

the mold. You know, what works when you're trying to make a beautiful food creation out of gelatin and then get it out of the mold? Yeah, well, thank you for that compliment. The book, I should preface all of this by saying I'm not a chef. So these recipes are designed for everyday home cooks. Anybody can make them. Some of them that seem a little more complicated, it's not that it's more difficult, it's just that they take more time. It takes time to layer because you have to let each layer set

So some of them, when you're suspending things and it takes a little more time, but none of it is technically very difficult.

When it comes to molds, I mean, traditionally people use cake pans. The copper molds are super popular and they work really well because they conduct the cold and the heat very well. So it's easier to remove the items from it. I always recommend using a little bit of a non-flavored oil in the mold before starting. It really helps get it to come out smoother. And then you take the mold, you put it in a little warm water so the edges melt just enough so that the mold slides out easier onto your serving plate.

And Pete, I want to ask you about suspending fruit or other ingredients in the gelatin. How do you do that so you make sure they look like they're floating? I mean, the creations in your book look incredible.

Yeah, this is my favorite part. And this is what I spent a lot of time developing and researching because I became fascinated with this idea. And it started because I wanted to figure out how to do a crystal clear gelatin with things floating in it. For that, a lot of times I'll use a clear cream soda so that it has a beautiful flavor. And then you could do it a couple different ways. One way I like to do it is you let the mixture set in the fridge or the freezer for a little bit, depending on the recipe and the quantities, until it starts to thicken.

And then if you're using something like gold leaf, you take it out when it's starting to thicken just a little bit. You start to stir the gold leaf in, and that way it doesn't settle directly to the bottom. And there's a couple different ways to do it. You can either do it in the fridge or the freezer, or you could put a metal bowl inside of another bowl filled with ice and slowly stir until it starts to thicken. All right.

And let's end, Peter, with drinks. Well, shots, really, made with gelatin. You have a recipe for watermelon margarita bites, Bloody Mary brunch shots, champagne and strawberries. What makes a good gelatin shot? And obviously we're eating this, not drinking it. Does that mean you might do a few more than you should? Yeah.

Yes, of course. I love the gelatin shots, especially when I was turning 21 in my early 20s. Everybody was doing jello shots. They were in all the bars. It was such a fun thing. So I wanted to find a way to make it elevated a bit. So my recipes may not be as strong as some of the traditional jello shots. They still have alcohol in them, but they're really tasty. And the watermelon margarita bites are one of the biggest hits. Anytime I make them, people go crazy. They're also sparkly. They have a little bit of salt to them.

They're really fun. They look great at parties. So yeah, the jello shots have now been elevated. We're using fresh ingredients, great liquors, and they're definitely a hit at any party for sure. All right. Well, you're welcome, folks. We have it all here for you. If you want to make your upcoming holiday parties really sing, Peter DiMario's book is Jiggle, a cookbook written along with Judith Choate. Peter, thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. This was so great. Thank you so much. And we have recipes for Grandma's Ambrosia, watermelon margarita bites, and more at curanow.org.

Support for NPR and the following message come from GoodRx. Looking for relief from cold and flu symptoms? With GoodRx, you can save an average of $34 on cold and flu medications. Plus, find savings on everyday prescriptions. GoodRx lets you compare prescription prices at over 70,000 pharmacies and instantly find discounts of up to 80%. Even if you have insurance or Medicare, GoodRx may beat your copay price.

Save on cold and flu prescriptions and more at GoodRx.com slash book. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com.

This message comes from GiveWell. GiveWell provides rigorous, transparent research about the best giving opportunities so that donors can make informed decisions about high-impact giving. To learn more, go to GiveWell.org and pick Podcast and enter NPR at checkout.