.I would eat jello for that memory.

But you will probably be disappointed.

There are a lot of recipes online

It's bright red, useful food at Christmas!

Cranberry Jell-o Salad

That salad sounds pretty good!

(I'm also of Jewish Descent. My father's family was Jewish.He denounced his heritage, as the story goes)

I have been disappointed for many years....maybe one time i will hit the jackpot.

I happen to like gelatin salads. These are two of my favorites:

Cranberry Molded Salad

3 oz. pkg. cherry gelatin, 1 C. boiling water, 1 can whole berry cranberry sauce, 2 apples, diced, 1/4 C. chopped celery, 1/4 C. chopped nuts. Dissolve gelatin in 1 C. boiling water. Stir in cranberry sauce, apples, celery and nuts. Pour into mold and chill overnight. If doubling recipe I use 1 can of whole berry cranberry sauce and 1 can jellied cranberry sauce. That came about quite by accident. I only had 1 can of each, but as it turned out, I preferred the texture. I have been making this one for about 40 years.

Molded Gazpacho Salad with Avocado Dressing

2 env. unflavored gelatin, 3 C. tomato juice, 1/3 C. red wine vinegar, 1 tsp. salt, dash tabasco sauce, 2 small tomatoes, peeled and diced, 1/2 med. bell pepper, diced, 1/4 C. onion, chopped, 1 T. chives, chopped, 1/4 C. celery, chopped.

Sprinkle gelatin over tomato juice and stir over low heat until dissolved. Remove from heat and add vinegar, salt and Tabasco. Stir. Chill until partially set. Add vegetables and stir. Pour into 1 1/2 quart mold or pan (I use bundt pan) Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Avocado Dressing:

1 ripe avocado, 1 Tbs. lemon juice, 1/2 C. light cream, 1/2 C. sour cream, 1 clove garlic, minced, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/8 tsp. sugar, 1 Tbl. onion, grated, dash cayenne pepper.

Peel and mash avocado with the lemon juice. Stir light cream into sour cream and blend. Add the seasonings. Stir in avocado and chill.

A suggestion put your grandmother's recipe on here and let posters make suggestions on how she made hers. Depending on when your grandmother made it the jello base may not be cranberry jello because that is a more recent product. My guess is that she used a combination of flavors. Cherry and Strawberry were the most common red jellos.

FWIW, that cranberry gelatin recipe seems just like one my Jewish aunt always made for holiday meals, except hers had frozen strawberries instead of cranberries.

It was really yummy & everybody liked it, but we don't eat flavored gelatins anymore

I only eat jello when on that 24 hour diet prior to a colonoscopy. And of course we grew up eating it and never complained. My mother only prepared it occasionally and would add fruit cocktail or some kind of fruit to it most of the time when she did. However she did have one specialty jello salad she was asked to bring to a lot of family meals, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I will have to find her recipe and post it, as it is unusual and tasty.

Oh, the jello memories. There were two my mom would make that I liked. One with strawberry jello, strawberries and a layer of sour cream in the middle. The other was my favorite...raspberry jello, raspberries and applesauce. I remember jello was pretty popular in Michigan when I was little. We moved to CA where it seemed to be less so.

One of our holiday must-haves is a molded Jell-O salad from 60-some years ago. (Yes, I’ve been making it that long.). I don’t have access to the recipe right now, but it is basically: Raspberry Jell-O; cranberry sauce, mashed up; diced apples; walnuts; and orange zest. It makes a very dense side-dish. If anyone wants the recipe I’d be glad to share it when I get home.

Please do CA Kate...it kind of sounds close!

Maifluer....her recipes go like this...1 box cran jello, cup of water, gran of cranberries, floof of etc...literally unreadable but adorable.

Thanks for everyone who is answering! I am gonna try from all the responses.

I actually really like that old fashioned green bean casserole.

However you could not pay me enough to eat any concoction of jello salad. Nope. :) All of you who enjoy it can have my portion. Don't even like just plain jello, and once people start adding various things to it, it starts to take on a Frankenstein appearance to me. I guess most of us have weird quirks and this is mine.

patriceny...i don't think it is weird. i only want that one recipe...otherwise no on the jello

I'm going to paste in two recipes. The first one, Eggnog Christmas Salad, is one my sister found and made two different times for the family Christmas dinner. It has celery in it, which seems odd, but it honestly was very good. The second recipe, Berry Delight Dessert Squares, is one that I snagged from here at the KT.

I actually quite like jello salads with fruit (no to the vegetables) and bookmarked the one that barb posted. It looks really good and in that link there is also a cranberry shortbread square that looks really good.

MY jello memory: My MIL used to make green and red jello for Christmas. She would use parfait glasses and first put one color, let it set, then the other. She would try to put them on a slant.

She would serve it with whipped cream.

Simple jello, but we were supposed to make the biggest deal over this jello! And, so we did.

I hate the idea of Jello...Gelatin...but I have had a few...especially my grandmothers that I loved...Thank you all!

I’d eat every one of these, I love jello with stuff in it. My mum made a Waldorf one a lot, lime jello with apples, walnuts and celery.

With the rise in popularity of prepared and packaged foods in the 50s and 60s, cooking recipes became "Buy this package/can or these two things at the store, follow the instructions but also add a couple of items, and when you serve it you can tell people that the dish is homemade". That's how I think about jello, whether with fruit or a can of fruit cocktail in it or plain. It's solid sugar water, not very tasty. Solid Kool-Aid, same ingredients and same taste. I haven't eaten it since I was a kid and for good reason.

Jello as a Jewish dish? I asked a friend of Jewish ancestry if there was anything to that and he laughed and gave the simple answer "No". Then said "I know someone who's a Lutheran and he likes tuna sandwiches. Does that make tuna sandwiches a Lutheran dish?"

My inlaws make a very good cranberry gelatin salad--- but they don't share the recipe :( They are weird that way. Maybe there is no recipe and they sort of wing it year to year, so if someone is around to help make it, they get the "secret recipe" by association? :)

What I do know is that they use cherry or strawberry gelatin. They also use whole cranberries, an apple, and an orange. No celery or nuts in theirs. The recipe is an older one, and I know they originally use to put the cranberries and apple (maybe the orange segments too?) through a manual meal grinder. They've started using a food processor in recent years, which makes more juice and the gelatin tends to not set up as well unless they add more Jell O or some unflavored gelatin.

I wish you luck in your quest :) Cranberry gelatin salad is one of those recipes I tend to look at closely in magazines because the inlaw's is so good-- and I'm not much of Jell O fan otherwise.

I never said it was a Jewish dish...I said I recently found out my birth father was Jewish.

I don't proclaim to know much about "being" Jewish but I doubt it include anything with gel

thank u quailfish....

Actually gelatin - or a form of it - IS used in Kosher Jewish cooking: read this.

A bit too complicated for this Gentile to understand but apparently not entirely uncommon :-)

"Actually gelatin - or a form of it - IS used in Kosher Jewish cooking:"

I think a friend of mine who's a Presbyterian also eats tuna sandwiches. I have no religious affiliation and I do too. I wonder why?

So Elmer, what do tuna sandwiches have to do with whether or not gelatin is a part of Kosher cooking? Your logic in this instance is invalid.

You drove up to the answer but failed to see it and made the same wrong assumption yourself.

Nothing has anything to do with anything unless you're talking about foods that some sects avoid. That was my point. Muslims and religious Jews don't eat pork. Many Hindus are vegetarians and most don't eat beef. But eating vegetables doesn't require Hindu ancestry or mark someone has having same. Gelatin isn't this and not that, same with jello, same with tuna sandwiches.

I used to make a cranberry jello mold at Christmas when the kids were really young. It was really good. Wish I could find the recipe. I have a vague memory of it having orange zest in it but I could be wrong.

My comment was made in response to the OP's "I don't proclaim to know much about "being" Jewish but I doubt it include anything with gel" and I merely went on to report that gelatin does factor into Kosher cooking but that the gelatin - a meat by-product - must be handled under specified processes to be acceptably Kosher.

btw, I don't know many Lutherans or Presbyterians that include gefilte fish or galarita meat jelly in their usual menu plans. More than just a bit different from a tuna sandwich!!

We have one with similar ingredients. It's called "sinful salad" and is strawberry instead of cranberry. Jello is not a mainstay at our holiday meals. It makes such a mess on the plate. For Easter I will often make a very simple raspberry and jello salad using raspberries from our garden--in memory of my grand mother. It has to be in a footed glass bowl to be authentic!!

Found it in The iCloud:

Snappy Fruit Mold

(Jello Cookbook)

Makes: 4 cups

2 pkgs (3 oz each) Jell-o, any red flavor
(I like Raspberry)
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups boiling water
16 oz. canned, jellied cranberry sauce (Ocean Spray)
2 Tblsp. grated orange rind
2 medium tart apples, finely chopped (about 2 cups)
2/3 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Dissolve Jell-o and salt in boiling water. Stir cranberry sauce with a fork until smooth. Add to Jell-o, along with the orange rind, blending well. Chill until thickened (not firm). Add apples and nuts. Pour into a 1 qt. mold. Chill until firm (overnight) .
--------------------------------------

I would suggest that you double it for a group. Also, the original recipe was 1/2 this --- I’ve already doubled it!

Anne, I don’t know why you couldn’t use Black Walnuts instead of English.... but.... it would change the flavor a lot.... which would be OK. A whole new adventure.

Oops, garden, you drove past it again.

Vegetables "factor into" Hindu cooking. Where does that lead?

I like plain red jello. There, I said it out loud. I don't care for jello with anything in it, but I wouldn't turn down a little whipped cream on top.

I like sugar free jello and Cool Whip combinations as a nice dessert on a hot day.

Seriously, I love jello as you can tell by my cookbook which has a ton of recipes HaHa. When I'm dieting, as a treat,

I have a dish of cherry diet jello (0 calories) made with fruit & topped with whipping cream. Can't say I've ever tried a veggie one.

Our family favorite at Thanksgiving was made with Apricot jello and a bunch of other stuff. I haven't been able to find apricot jello in years, tried it with peach and it was not right, even tried unflavored made with apricot nectar, still not right. So it will just have to remain a memory :-( Hope you are able to re-create the one you're looking for!

jello shots ... made with vodka?

This strawberry and pretzels salad is very good.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/strawberry-pretzel-dessert/

Raven, my daughter in law makes that strawberry and pretzel salad - its a family fav and I just love it.

My mother served us jello whenever we were really sick. Hot liquid jello in a mug, jello poured over cracked ice chips, jello as jello. As an adult, I consume jello in preparation of a colonoscopy.

That's the extent of my jello repertoire.

I’ve made this one dozens of times! It’s from an old BHG cookbook from 1976.

I particularly liked jello wigglers that I made when the kids were small some years ago.

Now that DH has alpha-gal he can't have any gelatin in anything - he even got a reaction to prescribed meds in gel caps. Gelatin is made from animal collagen - usually beef or pork by-products, and anyone with alpha-gal (from a tick bite) cannot eat any red meat or things made from such. It has become quite a cooking issue as even some purchased "vegan" plant-based sausages are made using beef casings. Go figure.

My MIL made the same jello for years and years using a yellow layer with shredded carrots, a green layer with pineapple, and a red layer with marshmallows. My FIL said he wouldn't even look at it anymore after 30 years of the stuff.

if the texture of jello does not excite ... what about puddings?

I had also sent the recipe to my 88 yr old Aunt who answered back that it was the same recipe give to her by her relative many, many, many years ago. Only difference is that the apples were coarsely ground. This made me wonder just how old could this jello recipe possibly be.

The first such fruit-flavored gelatin product was marketed in the US in 1845. It was patented in 1881. I guess jello, as we know it, has been around for a very long time. And, from my time-line deduction, this apple/cranberry recipe could have been around since the turn-of-the-century. Who knew!

Anne, Google Taste of Home Holiday Cranberry Gelatin Salad. They use pecans but you can use the nut of your choice.

Cleaning out Mom’s collection of cookbooks, I came across this booklet yesterday. It’s from General Foods but doesn’t have a publication date inside.

Don't know if it is the texture or the origins of Jello that skeeves you out. If it is only the origins, then you could substitute powdered agar-agar for unflavored Jello (or whatever gelatin), adding your own fruit flavoring. It might be in the same aisle as Jello at your grocery store.

Thank you all. I think part of my aversion comes from a hospitalization that included a lot of green jello

My daughter will not eat Jello or gelatin salads. I think it's a texture thing with her. Also will not eat whipped cream. Two things that most kids love. Wouldn't eat it as a child, and still won't eat it as an adult. It makes me sad because there's several that I love, especially the two I posted.