Mother-in-law's cold spinach ring

As I've heard it explained, before the introduction of commercial gelatin, aspics were considered a very haute cuisine thing because making clear, neutral-tasting gelatin was an extremely time-consuming and laborious process. Once Jell-O and its competitors hit the market, now every housewife could make one for the church potluck and went a bit overboard.

I feel like Adam really had a ball with this one. Tongue-in-cheek yet still affectionate teasing, awesomely wholehearted! Hope your mother-in-law also enjoys this one, Adam!

lmao the utter defeat when she says you need a pack of Jell-O after saying she wasn't a midwestern

6:00 Fun fact, you can do this because gelatin is "thermoreversible." You can melt and re-chill it repeatedly, and it won't lose its gelling properties.

I think this is a fantastic example of why *texture*, not flavor, is probably the main driver or food aversions and cultural preferences around food. From a purely flavor standpoint, I think most people unaccustomed to artificially-gelatinized food would find the flavors delicious, Adam included. However, when one’s flavor expectations (in this case, savory with spinach, onions, cheese) are different from one’s texture expectations (cold, jiggly, springy, gelatinized), it creates sensory confusion from what one’s culture expects in a food. This is likely why, for example, most people are repulsed by the idea of warm, liquid ice cream, or ice cream with Parmesan in it (which people used to eat), or even pineapple on a pizza. I think people’s food aversions are valid, but it is interesting how *texture*, rather than flavor, is what probably draws people away from some food items.

Dear Adam’s MIL, Thank you for being such a good sport about this! Most of us know not all recipes stand the test of time, so this was a nice retrospective on a Midwestern dish. Although, respectfully, I think I’ll continue to eat my lemon jello and onions separately.

I feel like one of the best flexes in life has to be your son-in-law bragging to the internet about how much they love you. Lauren’s mom must be a wonderful person ✨

So, Food scientist here- regarding the brick-like spinich, the shape is due to the technology used to freeze it- It’s called a plate and frame freezer, and TBH, its Introduction basically launched the frozen food industry, and allowed for a giant leap with regard to ingredient availibility year round, which is somethingwe all too often take for granted. (Thanks Clarence Birdseye!) The equipment works by pressing food between 2 extremely cold plates (they usually have a chilled fluid flowing inside hollows manufactured in the plate) For things like burger patties, or fish filets or whatnot, those can go in as-is (without the frame, making it just a plate freezer) but most vegetables have to be restrained by the frame. You can get other veggies in block form (peas aren't too hard to find, and quite a few fruits can be gotten like this), but most frozen produce is now done IQF, so you freeze faster (more fresh-like quality) and you can portion more easily. (There's a reason that the old Ginsu knife commercials showed them sawing through shoes, metal cans, concrete blocks, and bricks of spinach.

I've heard that these recipes started as a way to show off your refrigerator. You have to have a fridge to make this stuff, so it was a bit of a class flex

The square of spinach is actually the cheapest. The flash frozen bags generally have less spinach per mass than the block for the same price, and the block is generally already wilted. Great for when you dont need delicate barely wilted leaves in your dish

love you bringing back odd american specialties. Not every YT chef has to be doing the same wagyu bs. Some italian american, midwestern, southern, lil regional or forgetten-in-time-classics are gold

The historical context: Historically, gelatin was a pain in the @$$ to cook and associated with very fancy dining. When the industrial-produced stuff became available in the '50s, a lot of these crazy recipes took off and people just sort of went nuts with them for 15 or 20 years.

This really looks wild, but if Adam made a video about it im sure it's good

Lemon + spinach... Strikes me as Greek inspired, right out of the gate

I didn't even know frozen blocks of spinach were a thing

Adam's kinda-retirement has given us some of the most enjoyable videos on the channel. Happy for him

History's first ever sexy Lemon Jello pour. Inspirational

Hello, Lauren's Mom 😀 (And yes, Adam: Nothing beats an old, printed-out, often used, stained recipe.)

I think we've accidentally summoned B. Dylan Hollis.

Adam, at 3:22 whatever program does your captions left a note that it couldn't figure out what you were saying, but you clearly said 'rebar'