After a decade of silence, Lemon L'orange is coming to life again.
Once upon a time, this jelly artist extraordinaire was the alter ego of my friend Katrina Kong. Today, however, in Kong's Brooklyn kitchen, lemons take on a new lease of life. I was there to witness her rebirth as Kong stirred together gelatin, pomegranate juice and fresh lime juice. On the counter sat a clean vintage gelatin mold that had been taken from the wall as decoration. Kong moved and smiled as he recalled the birth of Lemon L'orange.
After a bad breakup and a family health scare, she longed for a project, one that would bring her joy. In 2010, a 1960s book "The Joy of Jelly" came into her life, and she decided to read the book through her own cooking on her blog. “That was Julie and Julia at their peak,” Kong said with a laugh. Lemon L'orange (the character she used to write her now-defunct blog) was a blonde, blue-eyed, 1960s party-goer with a sweet vibe in pearls, cat eyes, and lashes.
Lemon L'orange's adventures with gelatin were antithetical to Kong's life at the time, she said. A self-described introvert, she spent about two years writing the book while attending culinary school, working with sustainable food, and earning a master's degree in food studies from New York University. For Kong, who now works at the nonprofit FoodCorps, Lemon L'orange became a way to subvert female archetypes and do something silly. "It's nice. We all need a little bit of this," she said. In December, the retro Jelly Mistress is back online—this time on Instagram.
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It makes sense, then, that gelatin would rebound from the pandemic. The loneliness of the early days of the pandemic had people around the world seeking comfort in any nostalgia they could find, including their kitchens. In the age of social media, these creations are easier to share.
The hashtag #jello has 1.6 billion views on TikTok and 500,000 posts on Instagram. Creator Nick DiGiovanni's watermelon jelly tutorial has been viewed over 8 million times on YouTube. Gucci used jelly in a 2020 campaign (artist Sharona Franklin claimed they copied her work; the brand's creative agency denied the accusations). Los Angeles-based jelly artist Lexie Park makes jelly under the brand Nünchi and has worked for brands including Marc Jacobs, Ariana Grande and Nike. Jello is cool, weird, colorful, trendy, and so different from a traditional birthday cake or cupcake.
Gelatin has gone through on-again, off-again cycles of popularity in American pop culture, from the postwar heyday of savory aspic—those shrimp and celery molds you love to hate—to the nonstop TV commercials of the '90s, to To the strong shot of vodka. Our college days. Social media has once again opened the door to gelatinous wonders. (For example, there is a Facebook group called "Show Me Your Aspics" with more than 45,000 members.)
“We’re definitely going back to it for the comfort and the nostalgia of our childhood,” says Freddie Mason, creative strategist at Bompas and Parr, an internationally renowned creative agency known for its art Jellies became famous and later evolved into a full-fledged food experience design company. It's made rocking art for everyone from Netflix to Rolls-Royce. When Mason talks to me via Zoom from his London office, there’s a gelatin mold of Kylie Minogue’s breasts on a shelf behind him.
He found that clients came to Bompas and Parr with the specific goal of creating a brand ritual for people to share online when posting food or drink content. He cites Aperol spray as an example, crediting its revival to brightly colored photos of the drink. "You put an orange in it and take a picture of yourself drinking it, and everyone in Italy does that," Mason said. "If you could replicate that and get something visually effective, you'd have every drinker in the country, in the world, filming someone doing this."
Jelly has really come of age for visual documentation. "They are fleshy, trembling, scruffy, stretchy, but they are also crystal clear and perfect. It is the way they hold opposites in their textural and sensual properties that is so appealing to us," Mason said.
This also explains the jelly's long history, which actually dates back to the early days of aspic in Persia in the 10th century. It also has a long tradition in Vietnamese cooking (called thạch rau câu 3D) and Mexican cooking (called gelatinas flores); both dishes feature gorgeous flowers in clear gelatinous spheres, perfect for celebrations Eaten in. Britain has long been the frozen meat capital of the world, followed by France. To this day, it remains popular in Eastern Europe, Denmark and Nepal.
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The Jell-O brand was founded in 1897 in LeRoy, New York. It produced a sweet and savory instant gelatin mixture that had become a staple in the United States by the 1930s. Mason recalls Laura Shapiro's 2008 book "The Perfect Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century," when gelatin was promoted as a way to save time in the kitchen, and its popularity in the 1950s The decade has undergone a feminist rebranding.
But as gourmet fads entered American culture in the 1960s and 1970s, gelatin became less popular among adults. It was rebranded again in the 1990s, this time targeting children. Nowadays, the fascination with jelly has re-entered the cultural sphere, not just as nostalgia but also as camp. The role of the "woman in the kitchen" has been significantly reduced, becoming a choice rather than a requirement. As Mason said, "It's no longer a threat, so we can fool it."
Once maligned for its stickiness, childishness, commercial and institutional qualities – it was grandma’s or child’s food, processed food, served in hospitals – more and more people are (re)discovering the possibilities of gelatin and Use it to create visually interesting and delicious creations. Art has the potential to escape hypocrisy and enter a world of wonder.
The same thing happened when I visited the Solid Wiggles studio in Brooklyn. Light pours into the space and reflects off large expanses of gelatin patterns that are so colorful and richly patterned that they almost look like stained glass. Pastry chef Jena Derman and bartender Jack Schramm founded the company during the pandemic. With backgrounds in high-profile venues like Momofuku restaurant, cocktail bar Booker & Dax and Existing Conditions, the pair combined their strengths to create alcoholic (and non-alcoholic) jellies, and the business has taken off ever since. Shop Nationwide.
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In their studio, samples of various flavors sit on silver trays. Their aqua Showstopper is embellished with colorful stripes and delicate peach flowers, mimicking the French 75 cocktail, with flavors of lemon, gin, champagne and vermouth. And, of course, there's the ruby-striped Negroni Sbagliato. There's a box of jelly eyeballs in the refrigerator that taste like margaritas. They savor their looks: elegant, crystal clear and, frankly, charming. They're a far cry from college jello shots, but still inspired by them.
The art world is also involved. Pastry chef and performance artist Kristin Worrall has created 33 jellies of varying sizes and shapes that combine unusual flavors: black sesame and passion fruit; lemon, strawberry and coriander. The exhibition “Take Comfort” opened earlier this month at Standard Space Gallery in Salon, Connecticut. (You can still visit online.) The gallery keeps the treats at a cool 50 degrees during the day for display, then refrigerates the treats at night. Several have been sold. People crave them.
For Worrell, jelly is a metaphor. Gelatin cannot be frozen and is often enjoyed by a group of people at parties. They're the opposite of pandemic food: probably suitable for one person to eat during the week to make ends meet. Plus, there's room for error. "It's thermally reversible, so you can gel it, and then if it doesn't work, you can melt it and re-gel it." With Jell-O, there's room for error, room for joy , room for growth. It can be transformed into any shape you want while still maintaining a sense of mystery. No matter how popular focaccia becomes during the pandemic, bread just can't do it.
With the renaissance and renewed fascination with jelly, we seem to be rediscovering our curiosity about life and joy. The world is bigger again. It has more colors, movements and shapes. It's uncertain, but in a more beautiful way this time. You know, like the jelly itself.
Main image: Christine Worrall
