Jello salad

Jello salad is an American salad made with flavored gelatin, fruit, and sometimes grated carrots or other vegetables. Other ingredients may include cottage cheese, cream cheese, marshmallows, nuts, or pretzels. Jello salads were popular in the early 20th century and are now considered retro. Because of its many elements, the result has speckled bits of interior color against a colored gelatin background, and so the dish can be appreciated for its colorful visual appeal. For example, a jello salad might have green from a lime-flavored gelatin, brown from nuts or pretzels, white from bits of cottage cheese, and red and orange from fruit cocktail. Therefore, it has a "salad appearance" (small pieces of food) although it is held firm in gelatin (like aspic). The "salad" theme is more pronounced in variants containing mayonnaise, or another salad dressing. When the dish has plain gelatin instead of sweetened gelatin, the use of vegetables is more common (e.g. tomato aspic). Early gelatin-based precursors to the jello salad included fruit and wine jellies and decorative aspic dishes, which were made with commercial or homemade gelatin. Gelatin was time-consuming to cook, and commercial gelatin was produced in shreds or strips until the late 19th century and needed to be soaked for a long time before use. In 1894, the Knox Company produced the first commercial granulated gelatin, followed by Jell-O a few years later. The name "jello salad" is derived from the genericization of the Jell-O brand name. The convenience of jello made gelatin-based dishes easier to prepare at home, compared to early jellies and aspics.

Source: Wikipedia