Several years ago I bought, as a gift for a friend, an entire book of Jell-O recipes, published circa 1974. It was amazing how many of them contained meat products -- and canned meat products at that. *shivers*

Anyway, in the Deep South, they'd call it "Congealed Tuna Salad."

So there you go.

Thanks! But I just ate. Really. So nice of you to offer, though!

(Runs like hell.)

That is nasty.

Everyone knows you make it with real mayo, not Miracle Whip. Jeez.

Ah GAWD!

That, right there, is an abomination before the lord.

(speechless)

(crickets chirping)

Now would be a good time to link to my friend Wendy's WeightWatchers recipe cards from 1974.

≡ Click to see image ≡

Mr. Burns: Bart, I know you children see me as some sort of "booger man", but I'm really not such a bad dude. Oh, your milk's gone cold -- I'll ring for the maid.
[pushes a button; metal bars spring out around Bart's jaw and wrists]
Oh, sorry -- wrong button.
Bart: Uh...I think I'd like to go home.
Mr. Burns: If you stay, you can have anything you want to eat. Even...some sort of gelatin dish. It's made from hooves, you know.

I think I've mentioned the butter, jelly and tuna on rye I had when I was 10.........and am still curious to try Turkish chicken breast pudding.

I dunno, I'd be willing to give it a shot.

HAHAHA eponysterical what?

I'm sure the fruit flavoring would make it a little weird and the texture is probably the hardest part to get past but I don't think it's that gross really.

Grody to the max.

I'd try it. I don't think I'd like it, but I would try it.

p&c: in theory, sure, one often has fish with lemon or lime or other citrus. Or aoili sauce. Sometimes together.

But I think throwing canned tuna into jell-o is one of those "dumb down a complicated french dish into a ten minute make ahead and serve cold casserole" ideas that must fail because of the texture, temperature and the sugar. There's also that disconnect between presentation and taste that will throw off everyone's palate and make the dish taste nasty, regardless.

Or is this overthinking the plate of beans?

I see that recipe as the Midwestern variant of "Mexican" food. In "Mexican" food there are a palette of ingredients (beans, cheese, meat, tortillas, etc), that are processed and combined to produce essentially the same thing in a different form factor (tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, etc).

In this case, the palette is Miracle Whip, Jell-o, tuna, chips, pickles, macaroni, mini marshmallows, Velveeta, canned cream soup (mushroom/celery/chicken), peas, tomato sauce, ground beef, etc.

In this particular case, I see that recipe as either coming from someone with no taste buds, or from someone who doesn't want to ever have to cook for the potluck again.

I'm so tempted to make this the next time I do church fellowship (which is March 2, actually). Would the smell ever leave my kitchen, ya think?

I used to have an ad with a recipe that I cut out of a 1950s Good Housekeeping or something on the fridge. It was for a delightful lunch loaf - made with jello, a couple different kinds of scary meat - like spam - hardboiled eggs, mayonnaise, condensed milk, olives, celery, etc. The best thing about it was that you let it set in one of those half gallon cardboard milk containers and then when you got to your chosen picnic spot (the ad showed the beach, complete with frolicking teenagers, and you just know the sand added delightful crunch) you slid the monster out of its box and cut it into delicious sandwich ready slices, each with a yummy piece of hard boiled egg and some mystery meat and some canned olives showing right up amidst the jello-y matrix!

Oh and hey, if you google lunch loaf in milk container in the vain hope that someone else somewhere found that ad and scanned it and put it up on the intarnets? Metatalk is the very first result. Which says something. I'm not sure what, but something.

Jello is the original molecular gastronomy. Blech.