The Strange History of Jell-O: Gelatin, Bone Broth & Jell-O Shots

. 2026 Nancy May update: Hey, everybody, it's Nancy May, and yes, this is another

episode of Family Tree Food and Stories, where every dish has a little bit of

history, a good story, and a little bit of mystery, even in your kitchen

and I'm Sylvia Frantz, your cohost, and we're

so glad you're here today

2026 Nancy May update: And before we do anything else,

I'd like to give a shout-out to our listeners in Tokyo, Japan.

You've been showing up for us, So in honor of you in Tokyo, konnichiwa

And it's really good timing because Japan turns

out to be part of today's show

2026 Nancy May update: Yes, it does, so stay tuned but there's a Facebook

group before we get there about ASPEC

so define this group about ASPEC.

Sounds fishy to me

2026 Nancy May update: I know.

You gotta pronounce that right too.

but there are more than 45,000 people in this group, and it was started

by a mom in Denver in 2016 who was kind of tired of everybody being

unpleasant in other food groups.

You know those folks,

Yeah, so are you telling me 45,000 people posting

in a group about molded gelatin?

2026 Nancy May update: Yes, I am.

and the videos of themselves poking it.

All right, that kind of sounds obscene, but I'm not gonna go there.

The rule is if it jiggles, it stays.

And, you know, my dad used to have a saying, it must be jelly

because jam don't shake like that.

He was talking about people who are a little large.

I love your dad already.

I wish I would've been able to meet him.

So, okay.

I have a question, and I think I already know the answer, but just in case

2026 Nancy May update: Okay, So the question is, did it

split into rival factions?

That is the question.

Did it split into a rival faction?

Just like how the Baptist Church grows their ministry, if somebody doesn't

get along, they just start a new one

2026 Nancy May update: Careful, you might get smoted or whatever they call it.

But there is a splinter group in this whole Facebook thing of Aspect and it's

called Aspect with Threatening Auras.

Ooh.

That can't be their real name

2026 Nancy May update: it is.

There's actually a competition in Texas, believe it or not.

Hello, D. Scott Smith in Waco.

but there's a costume party, a mid-century house is involved and it's been running

for five years, believe it or not

I would actually like to go.

It sounds interesting to me, a lot of good people watching so it sounds

like gelatin is genuinely back

2026 Nancy May update: Well, it's trying to, and pretty much.

Bone broth, jelly cocktails, aspic, not aspect as I keep wanting to

call it, collagen powder it's back across the board, and you know what?

I'm curious as to know why

Well, of course I've got an answer

2026 Nancy May update: Of course you do.

and it's older than either of us expected

2026 Nancy May update: But before we get there, because it is Jell-O we're

talking about or gelatin shots up first and yes, they're Jell-O shots, and no,

there's not anything in them just yet

Well, if there is, I promise not to tell

2026 Nancy May update: Well you'd probably tell anyway, but

thank you for being here, folks.

We're glad that you're here and listening, and that you pulled a seat up to our table

Because by the end, you'll know why gelatin is on your feed, why it

was on your school lunch tray, and why people are paying $40 a tub for it today

2026 Nancy May update: Can you believe that?

$40 and I'll find out why my bone broth tastes, yes, like blech dishwater.

Three times trying

I've got the answer.

Just wait so start with a part I can measure.

Bone broth is in every grocery store now in cartons at four or five dollars a

quart, and I actually think that's cheap

2026 Nancy May update: Right?

With the amount of work that goes into it but 20 years ago it was

something you made well or your mom made because you were poor

Or just because your grandmother did.

And there's the cocktail jelly business, a Brooklyn outfit selling 40 pieces for $115

2026 Nancy May update: 40 pieces for $115?

Yikes.

, I'll take that business markup any day.

And they've roughly doubled sales three years running,

and they're on 20 restaurant menus.

Can you believe that?

2026 Nancy May update: No, I can't, but I'm gonna guess that they might have a

few more restaurants to add to that list by the time we're done with this show.

And on the other end, of course, you've got the Facebook group

folks who are not paying any attention to anything or anybody

So can you tell me more about them?

Because I just saw those numbers, 45,000

2026 Nancy May update: No, right?

And then there's a food historian in there too, a real one.

A history professor with 25 books to his name.

Ugh, I guess that makes him a official professor

And in an aspic group?

2026 Nancy May update: I know, right?

he got in on a dare during the pandemic, and believe it or not,

he actually deleted the invitation twice just based on the name

And now please do tell

2026 Nancy May update: Of course I will.

now his post gets thousands of likes.

He did a whole lobster tail set in a lobster shape mold, of course and with

champagne and a shellfish reduction.

la-di-da

That is actually not a joke entry.

That's somebody taking it very seriously now

2026 Nancy May update: Yeah, very seriously, and that's what struck me.

The members talk about things being cursed.

That's their word for it though, but they're not really mocking it

So why now?

Because this feels like it came out of nowhere

2026 Nancy May update: Well, not exactly.

The historians' answer is that it didn't.

So for 20 years we've been anti-process, anti-additive,

pro-craft, and yes, pro-homemade

And gelatin, I understand, got filed under processed, which it's not

2026 Nancy May update: Correct.

Right up until you make it yourself out of, well, bones.

Kind of gruesome.

I think this really should be an October show instead, but that's for another time.

Then bone gelatin is the most from scratch thing that you could

probably make in your kitchen today

Oh, and that's the turn, isn't it?

It didn't change.

The category it sits in actually changed

2026 Nancy May update: Pretty much the same substance, just a different shelf

And that's the same reason that no dye version showed up.

Jell-O put out a line this year with no artificial colors or sweeteners

2026 Nancy May update: Uh, yes, and I think most of the big companies

have to take those artificial things out by, I think it's 2027 I heard.

But the brand is chasing the same instinct as we who are making

lobster aspect in our kitchen.

I'm gonna have to try that one

Everybody's arriving at the same place from the opposite directions

I wanted to . Get your bone broth right first before you try lobster.

2026 Nancy May update: Right.

Maybe we could say that.

Well, I can say that.

I guess I better get my before I try lobster aspect

I would agree.

So the substance itself, gelatin, is collagen.

You boil it out of bones and hides, and it sets when it cools.

2026 Nancy May update: Which is also what bone broth really is

Bone broth is gelatin.

Not similar to it, the same thing.

When yours sets in the fridge and it goes wobbly, you got it

, 2026 Nancy May update: Mine just never wobbled once.

It should have been like you wiggle and jiggle and tickle inside you.

Like weebles when they wobble right?

Exactly but we're gonna come back to bone broth later

and I think I know why yours failed

2026 Nancy May update: Okay.

Here's what I want sort out first, though.

If I say jelly, what do you picture?

Grape in a jar and possibly on, of course, sourdough toast

2026 Nancy May update: Sourdough toast, of course, right?

And there's absolutely no gelatin in jelly at all.

It's actually pectin, and that comes out of, well, the fruit itself, a plant

so American jelly is the plant one

2026 Nancy May update: Correct.

American jelly is the plant one and then we've got the British term for

jelly, which really means Jell-O.

Their word for jelly is jam

So a kid asking for jelly and ice cream is asking

for something completely different

2026 Nancy May update: In Great Britain, correct.

Completely.

And that's before, well, you leave England

In Japan, it's saccharin, borrowed straight out of our word, , but

carrageenan is one that's actually theirs and it's made from seaweed

2026 Nancy May update: So now we have three different substances doing one job

You got it.

Animal collagen, fruit pectin, and seaweed agar.

different continents, same problem, three different answers

2026 Nancy May update: And they all end up wobbling in somebody's

refrigerator, which I kind of like.

It gives it character

Absolutely.

Although I should take something back because beef

bone broth is also known as pho

2026 Nancy May update: Pho.

I always want to mispronounce that one but I've never had pho

Never.

It's amazing

2026 Nancy May update: Nope, not once.

Although I know how it sounds, I will give it a try, I promise

Well, I actually make it in the Crock-Pot, and

it's not so difficult as it sounds

2026 Nancy May update: Crock-Pot.

You are the Crock-Pot wonder.

Um, I did make some yogurt the other night

That was in your Instapot.

This is a Crockpot.

2026 Nancy May update: Oh, excuse me.

Okay, I've screwed up on that one.

Well, I'll have to try that in a Crockpot next time.

Char the bones and the onion and ginger first, then the

star anise and cinnamon and clove.

And then you just walk away, just like the yogurt

2026 Nancy May update: I like that part walking away.

It's a dessert spice cabinet in beef broth, which sounds

a little weird but also good

Oh, it's amazing.

And it gels.

Chill a good pot of pho and it sets like anything else

2026 Nancy May update: So I'm gonna say we need to do an episode on that,

but we'll have to let that go for now

No, you're just gonna have to take a field trip to Pinellas Park,

where they have pho shops on every corner

But here's the thing I keep coming back to this isn't the first comeback

2026 Nancy May update: So it's not meaning what?

Meaning everybody treats aspic like a 1950s embarrassment, and

that's wrong by only about, hmm, 900 years

2026 Nancy May update: only 900 years

Hold that.

We'll be back in a minute

2026 Nancy May update: Stay tuned.

We've got more

So Sylvia, we are back as always.

We can't let them hanging with more because I wanna know

what happened 900 years ago

Aspic isn't American, and it is not a process.

For roughly 1,000 years, it was a prestige , dish, festive tables,

country banquets all over the world

2026 Nancy May update: Well, la-di-da.

And the thing that people posted as a curse was really not so much

Actually , was a status food for 10 centuries.

It had one bad decade in the middle of the 12th, and that decade everyone remembers

2026 Nancy May update: Of course they do.

. We're not really reinventing a joke about, well, aspect or something else.

We're coming back to something that just kind of had a slight detour

And the reason it was, prestigious is the

reason it stopped being made.

Before powder, it took two days to make gelatin

2026 Nancy May update: I'm not surprised.

Two days which is a lot of work

Yet you had to boil the shin bones till they collapse,

you strain it, you boil again, and then clear it with egg whites

2026 Nancy May update: So it was never a recipe problem, which I'm

finding out about , and it was more of a time and labor issue.

and then in 1679, this is the story that I like, there's a French

physicist named Denis Papin, and he builds a sealed pot that softens

the bone with, you got it, steam

it's the precursor to a modern-day pressure cooker

2026 Nancy May update: Yes, the first one.

Although my mom always said they were dangerous, but yeah,

now we have the Instant Pot.

but it kept exploding, so what did he do?

He's a good entrepreneur and inventor.

He invented the safety valve, which is the thing that makes the steam engine

actually work later, you know, locomotive

I always like to tell the story that my mom had a

pressure cooker, and she had one of the steam valves, and I thought

it sounded like a teeter-totter.

It would go

2026 Nancy May update: It jiggled?

Yeah, I know those, right?

and down.

2026 Nancy May update: And it would always go chhh when you

let it go, like a steam engine

Well, the Instant Pot does that during a natural release

or if you wanna do it quickly.

So the Industrial Revolution starts with a man trying to get more out of bone

2026 Nancy May update: Pretty much more or less.

And then, you know, he's gotta take it to somebody bigger.

He takes it to Charles II, of course, and says, "You know, Charles," or Chuck,

"you gotta build 100 of these to feed the poor people, because that's kinda your

job." And, mm, Charles goes, "Eh," and nobody else bites or drinks, pun intended

So tell me what happened in America

2026 Nancy May update: Well, that's a whole nother story.

- that I love.

In 1845, Peter Cooper patents powdered gelatin.

He's also famous for building the private college in New York City,

Cooper Union, and he was famous for the Tom Thumb locomotive.

And you know what else he owned?

What else?

2026 Nancy May update: He owned a glue factory

Are you really telling me a dessert that we eat

today came out of the glue business?

2026 Nancy May update: Disgusting, I know, but yes, straight out of it.

Then he does nothing with the patent that he had for 50 years.

But I think you know what happens next

Of course I do, because I did my homework.

2026 Nancy May update: Of course.

let's forward to Le Roy, New York, 1897, when Pearl Wait,

the carpenter, mixes something up at home and creates a fruit-flavored

gel, and his wife, May, names it, of course, Jell-O, which we know today

2026 Nancy May update: Yes, and I love that her name is May.

Of course.

And I do love entrepreneurs.

So this is always the hard part to ask.

Did they strike it rich?

Nope.

He couldn't sell a single package of it.

So in 1899, he bails on the effort and sells the trademark

to his neighbor for only $450

2026 Nancy May update: So only $450 just for the name, but that

might have been a lot back then

It was, and that's the part that gets me because I do this for

a living, marketing and advertising.

The powder wasn't worth anything, but the advertising was

2026 Nancy May update: Well, as they say in advertising, Sylvia,

you know what this one is?

But wait, there's more.

Remember Ron Popeil?

Yes, it slices, it dices

2026 Nancy May update: Yes, and it wiggles and jiggles, And there's actually another

person that few of us have actually heard much about, and her name is Rose Knox

so is that the box of Knox gelatin that's in my pantry today?

2026 Nancy May update: You got it.

That's the one, the orange and kinda orangey yellow box, the weird color.

she and her husband started Knox Gelatin in Johnstown, New York in 1890,

and they picked the town specifically because the tanneries or the knackers

or glue factories, as they've also been called, were relatively close by.

And yes, that was the raw material that they used to make their product

So the supply chain chose the headquarters rather than vice versa

2026 Nancy May update: Mm, yeah, and it usually does except when you've got some

fancy CEO who wants to live someplace la-di-da like, as they always call it.

But sadly, her husband Charles, dies, in 1908, and everybody assumes

that she's gonna sell the business.

And instead she says nope, and runs it for 40 years instead

It sounds like she was pretty good at it

2026 Nancy May update: Of course she was.

Tough lady, strong soul, and because she was eating all that Knox gelatin.

Muscles.

2026 Nancy May update: right, but the first day she permanently

closed the back door or locked it.

Why?

Because the women employees had been made to use the back door as their entrance.

instead, Rose Knox says, "We are all ladies and gentlemen,

and we will use the front door

And that was in 1908

2026 Nancy May update: Yes, it was.

And then in 1913, oh, she does another thing.

she institutes the five-day work week, then two weeks paid vacation,

and one more thing, she even decides that she needs to put in

a sick leave time in her company.

Ford's five-day week wasn't put in until 1926, but he still

gets the fame and the credit.

Oof, not good

Of course he did.

Ugh, the men again.

13 years behind a widow selling bone powder in upstate New York

2026 Nancy May update: I know, that's pretty pathetic.

and then it got into everything.

She obviously knew how to sell too.

I like this lady even more, and for most of us, it also got into our school lunch

trays or onto our school lunch trays

So in that little compartment, if I remember correctly,

it was usually red or green

2026 Nancy May update: Well, for me, it was also in a small plastic bowl, usually

with a squirt of whipped cream on top.

Always not enough whipped cream.

But it was cheap, inexpensive, and keeps really well, and you didn't

really need to cook it, and it survives being made hours earlier.

And you know what?

It's a lunch lady cafeteria's dream food

Well, it sounds like it to me.

But then I heard there's Utah which took it further than anybody else

2026 Nancy May update: Yeah, , for sure.

I love this one.

the legislature actually had to vote on it.

Can you imagine?

Jell-O becomes a political thing twice.

So get this.

In 2001, they had to vote on a resolution naming it as a favorite

snack for the state, and then again, number two, in 2009 they declared a

National Jell-O Week in, yes, Utah

A whole week Most foods when I'm doing my marketing

calendars only get one day.

I can't believe a whole week at all about Jell-O

2026 Nancy May update: Well, you got lots of colors, so might as well one

for each day of the week but it falls on the second week of February, and

there's a flavor that apparently also always wins, but I bet you know that one

I know that one.

It's strawberry according to the company.

But the one I keep thinking about is the one they retired

2026 Nancy May update: I never thought that any Jell-O flavor had retired.

So what was that one?

Can you believe it?

Celery.

Celery Jell-O was real.

But here's the secret, a savory flavor only makes sense if the thing

started out savory to begin with

2026 Nancy May update: Which, okay, so this is a good segue because

it brings me to my dad who loved tomato aspect thinking of savory

Really?

Do tell.

I love both Bob and your dad's stories.

Yes

2026 Nancy May update: so this one's a little bit about his mom,

or my grandmother, we called Grammy.

and she used to send him a crate of tomato aspic every Christmas, every single year.

He absolutely loved this stuff

So a crate.

Do you know actually how many cans that was?

2026 Nancy May update: I don't, but it seemed like a lot, and it lasted

him most of the year, and he rationed it like it was something really rare.

And there was always a can, two, or six in the refrigerator

So I'm wondering, can you buy it now?

2026 Nancy May update: I haven't seen it on the shelves

for years and lots of years.

I haven't even really looked too hard for it until now, and I don't

think that they even make it anymore

There's always some family food that gets lost over time, sadly,

and your grandmother shipped it by the case and now you just can't find it

2026 Nancy May update: I know, but it was a loving thing that she sent.

But wait, because, well, it's apparently coming back looking completely

different and a little homemade, and not the way you're picturing it.

In cans like my grandmother, for sure, or the Jell-O shots, well,

some of us might remember from the college days at the frat house

I'll never admit if I do or not.

So please describe them because the photo you shared genuinely got my attention

2026 Nancy May update: Well, Aspect is one thing, but they also have the jellies,

which are layered and cut into inch cubes and flavored with color bursts injected

into them and suspended inside the Jell-O or the gelatin in stunning designs.

it's a work of art, and they're wobbly and translucent, and yes, they're gel

When I looked at it, I thought I was actually looking at

stained glass like you find in churches

2026 Nancy May update: No, I know, right?

But a pastry chef in Brooklyn started making large format jelly

cakes for weddings back in 2018.

Weddings, can you imagine?

No, not for my next wedding.

And I found a pair of British guys at a company called Bombas and Parr doing

something similar, but as art since 2007.

They met in school orchestra at 13

2026 Nancy May update: 13.

That's pretty cool but what were they doing exactly with this jelly?

Can you believe it?

It was architectural jelly.

they once created a Victorian steamship out of gelatin.

Their own account says it was over 50 tons.

Sounds a little exaggerated to me and then they let the people eat it

2026 Nancy May update: So I can't imagine.

50 tons and eating this stuff.

the SS Great Britain.

I looked them up.

I did a little background on that one too, and the better story

is what they did with it next.

Which is

2026 Nancy May update: Well, they brought back a dead company, believe it or not.

Talk about resurrection of food and, well, companies.

Venom and Fraud, the firm that made the copper molds founded in the 1700s,

which was gone by 1924, and try to get one of those antique molds now.

You know what they look like

I know.

I've seen them all over kitchens where people use them for decoration.

But it sounds like it was killed by convenience

2026 Nancy May update: Pretty much, that's true.

Their own history page calls what came after the jellying dark ages.

Say that three times fast.

2026 Nancy May update: No, I can't, not with a jello shot in me.

So they went under, then the mold went out of fashion

2026 Nancy May update: Yeah, that's kind of how it happened, and everybody brought

the name back a century later, which is the same story as many others today

There's also a woman in LA, running her whole operation herself,

installations at Paris and the New York Fashion Week and the Venice Biennale

2026 Nancy May update: Whoa.

making a Jell-O business at New York Fashion Week?

so this actually stopped being a novelty and turned truly

into a high art form or craft

You got it, and you can get the cocktail ones without

any alcohol, which surprised me

2026 Nancy May update: And you know what I saw this morning?

I saw somebody who made one that looked like a dirty martini,

which is what we've got sitting right in front of us right now.

Sounds extremely very good to me So it was

never really about the booze.

It was about the object and what it looked like

2026 Nancy May update: Correct.

And the art.

And one more thing I found that undid my entire assumptions.

You know what they say?

Never assume.

The boozy Jell-O shots inven- aren't really a modern

frat house invention at all

Don't tell that to anybody at Florida State.

2026 Nancy May update: No,

really?

2026 Nancy May update: For real.

believe it or not, there's actually published recipes for wine set gels

that go back to the Middle Ages.

Get your cone hats and your scarfs ready

So you're telling me the Jell-O shot is medieval?

2026 Nancy May update: Except for the plastic cup, that one's new.

The idea is actually 600 years old or more And there's one more part that

is a comeback that is truly an ugly one

Are you talking about the supplements?

And I want people to hear this… And are you talking about the supplements?

And I want people to hear this carefully

2026 Nancy May update: I am talking about the supplements and the vitamin

business, which really isn't as regulated as the drug industry.

Well, you may not know that, but it's not.

Because collagen powder is everywhere right now

And here's what nobody is saying out loud.

Collagen and gelatin are really the same protein.

Gelatin is collagen that's been cooked

2026 Nancy May update: So that $40 tub that we talked about earlier or the

$140 box of shots is actually what?

It's chemically an envelope of Knox gelatin with much better branding

2026 Nancy May update: Yeah and the other thing you found out,

There's a viral version calling plain gelatin nature's Ozempic.

. Snopes ran it down.

Large parts of it are in an ad fraud operation

2026 Nancy May update: So we're talking snake oil fraud in a modern day way but

how specifically are they doing this?

. Sylvia France: They are making fake news pages built to look like

real network coverage, fake comment sections, famous doctors' names

on recipes that they never wrote

2026 Nancy May update: This is disgusting, actually.

It isn't a trend.

It's a snake oil sales funnel as far as I'm concerned

Yes, a And we started this episode in 1679 with a man pitching bone

jelly to a king as the answer to hunger

2026 Nancy May update: I know.

Well, it might've been good back then, but not today like this.

350 years and the same sneaky sales pitch.

And one correction, because you'll hear this every Thanksgiving as well:

gelatin is not made from horses' hooves.

Ooh, thank goodness

That's totally disgusting and not true, but

this one is actually everywhere

2026 Nancy May update: Yeah, I know.

I've got the horse friends down the street and I used to ride.

So horse hooves are actually keratin, basically fingernails.

All right, so I used to bite my fingernails but gelatin is collagen

and a completely different protein

So do you know where the mix-up is from?

2026 Nancy May update: I do.

Old enough that Knox put the calf on the package partially to make sure and

say out loud what was really in the box.

Not neigh horses

So now, Nancy, back to your three attempts.

What was in the pot?

2026 Nancy May update: Well, it was really pretty simple.

Lots of beef bones.

We went to the butcher.

Water, salt, pepper, that's it

That's it?

2026 Nancy May update: That's it.

That was the recipe, and that's what I was told to do

Well, that's the French recipe, not the France recipe.

2026 Nancy May update: Okay.

Then you didn't make bad broth.

You made unseasoned bone water and you were absolutely right to hate it

2026 Nancy May update: Well, I'm glad my taste buds were at least correct.

So what should I have done?

Well, I cheat.

I start with a rotisserie chicken that I get at the store

, 2026 Nancy May update: So it's a $4.99 one, the kind that

you get under the heat lamp

That's the one and here's why I like it.

You can eat the chicken for dinner first

2026 Nancy May update: Um, that makes sense.

Twice as nice.

But the broth is made out of the part that you have to throw

away, I'm gonna guess, right?

Oh, I save it all.

Bone, skin, the whole carcass.

You already got a money's worth, nothing being wasted.

And I do admit that I was a guest at Thanksgiving, and they had three turkeys,

and I took home all three carcasses

2026 Nancy May update: Okay.

That's a little creepy, and but I get it what goes in with it?

So I have onions, garlic, carrots, parsley, bay leaves, thyme,

oregano, turmeric, and whole peppercorns

2026 Nancy May update: Ooh, that sounds pretty good.

A considerably longer list than just my salt, pepper, and well, water

But there's a little bit more.

I add a splash of apple cider vinegar, which actually isn't for flavor.

It's the acid that pulls more collagen out of the bone

2026 Nancy May update: so the vinegar is doing some kind of

chemistry thing it sounds like

Exactly.

Then also the lemon and the juice and the peel both

The vinegar's doing chemistry.

The lemon, the juice, and the peel both

2026 Nancy May update: Okay.

and how long do you cook it for?

Oh, - four hours minimum.

I do mine on the stove top so I can watch the liquid and taste as I go

2026 Nancy May update: Hmm.

Oh, God.

I taste it for sure and that's about it

I'll confess the rest.

Mine still came out a little flat, as you know it can, so I stir in Better

Than Bouillon Roasted Chicken at the end

2026 Nancy May update: Okay, so I'm glad that you got a cheater on the side

because I'd probably do the same thing.

But you simmer the bones for half a day and then you reach for the jar

I do

2026 Nancy May update: I'm not gonna say anything as far as cheating,

but it still sounds pretty good

You're saying quite a lot by that way you're saying it.

2026 Nancy May update: Yeah, well I'm not accusing anybody to things

that would've saved me at least but, I think you've got a few more.

So what else could I have used?

Oh, I love them.

I found them on Amazon.

It's called Soup Sox.

Yes, Soup Sox.

2026 Nancy May update: One or two.

Only one, and you do not put them on your feet.

2026 Nancy May update: Okay

so to make bone broth, you have to strain it clear, and the

sock means you lift out… It's Soup Sox.

What you have is cheesecloth that you knot at the bottom

and at the top, which is great.

So you have to strain the broth clear, and the sock means you lift it out and you're

done, and you throw it in the garbage

2026 Nancy May update: and for storing it, I think you've got a trick on that one

Oh, I love my silicon soup molds.

. , I love it 'cause you can freeze it in portions, you know, from

tablespoons to one to two and four cups, and then you pull out whatever

you need for what you're making

2026 Nancy May update: Those sound really cool.

I'm gonna have to find those, Which at our house is, of course, bob soup

Well, at my house I make chicken noodle

soup, that's kind of obvious.

Then there's always the hoppin' John, which we've had our discussion about,

- which is its own episode, and I'm not opening up that can of worms today

because I am making it for you next time

2026 Nancy May update: Okay, well I'm looking forward to that one, but we're

absolutely coming back to that one because I've got a lot of southern food to try yet

But here's what matters.

Chill it overnight, and if it sets and if it wobbles

2026 Nancy May update: And it wiggles and jiggles.

It's gelatin

then you made the same thing that's in the box and

the $40 tub out of a carcass that you were going to throw away anyway

2026 Nancy May update: I like that part

So five things that you can take out of this,

2026 Nancy May update: Absolutely not just five facts, five things you can

do today, and here's what they are.

One, gelatin and collagen are the same protein.

Gelatin is collagen that's been cooked.

So before you go and buy a $40 tub of it, know you're buying a version

of what's in a $2 envelope instead

Two, Bone broth is gelatin, and the test is free.

Chill it overnight, and if it sets and wobbles you've pulled the collagen out.

If it stays liquid, you didn't.

2026 Nancy May update: Number three, season it or don't bother.

Then you end up with bones and water alone and make bone water.

Yuck.

I don't recommend that.

Add aromatics, a splash of apple cider vinegar for acid, and well, let it sit

for four hours on the stove just simmering

Yes, you do not want bone broth dishwater.

2026 Nancy May update: No.

Four, . Fresh pineapple will stop it from setting.

Same with kiwi, mango, papaya, figs, and fresh ginger.

The enzymes eat the protein.

Use the can.

The heat already killed them.

I guess that's why my mom used the can fruit cocktail in her orange Jell-O

2026 Nancy May update: Right?

They were always everywhere as I was growing up as a kid.

Every mom did it.

And number five, aspic.

Not aspect, but aspic.

But aspic, you gotta get that one out right, was never a joke.

It was a prestige dish for roughly 1,000 years, and it had one little bad decade.

What's happening now isn't a revival of a kitsch, it's people coming back to

something after just a slight detour.

So the next time somebody laughs at your Jell-O mold, go, "Ha," and scoff at them

… Sylvia France: Yeah, You can tell them that 45,000 people are in a

group about it, and one of them is an actual history professor

2026 Nancy May update: That makes it legitimate and

here's what we want for you.

Go find your gelatin memory, the school tray, the mold that your grandmother

made or maybe mom, and the one flavor that you would still eat today

And . Then tell us.

That's the kind of thing we read out on the show

2026 Nancy May update: We'd love to do that.

and if you make the broth, tell us whether it wobbled or whether you

just cleaned the dishes with it.

I especially want to hear from anyone who fixes what

Nancy couldn't with her bone broth

2026 Nancy May update: Please.

Three times, I'm gonna give it another try.

Well, maybe I'll just take it from you

I'll just give you a couple of my,

, 2026 Nancy May update: frozen squares for sure

I have a care package all ready for you and if you want the

long version of this kind of thing to capture your memories the companion

book is at Family Tree Food and Stories

2026 Nancy May update: Yep, just go to podcast.familytreefoodstories.

At the top of the page, there's a little option to say book, and it'll

take you right to Amazon to buy it.

And by the way, it is on sale right now.

I just saw that, and I know somebody who just bought several

of them for friends and family.

So shots up to the cows, the seaweed, and yes, all right, so the

fruit that you add into the Jell-O

All solving the same problem, . So happy

cooking and happy experimenting.

2026 Nancy May update: Now where is the alcohol Jell-O shot?

They're in my cup now.

2026 Nancy May update: See you later.

Bye-bye