Guess what, everyone! You were meeting in the home ec classroom today,
and you had a substitute teacher! Your normal teacher was there, too, but, just hold on a moment, we'll get to that!
"Good morning, everyone!" Summer greeted the class cheerfully. "How's it
going? For those of you who don't know, I'm
Summer, and I'm going to be teaching Stark's class today because
Stark," she gestured to the animal sitting on the desk beside her, "is currently a koala. As, I'm sure you all know, is just a thing sometimes."
And if you didn't know that already? Well, one new lesson learned down for the day!
"Anyway," she said, "moving on. Since this class is about hobbies, I figured it just made sense to bring to you all a weird hobby I've picked up over the years and that I've really glommed onto and that's a certain morbid fascination with old Mid-Century American recipes, borne out of that bizarro post-war cross-section of prosperity, capitalism, and industrial innovation to bring you things like...."
Oh, no, there were
cloches. Summer was lifting the lids of some of them now.
"
Prawn-stuffed apples ,
ham-wrapped bananas with hollandaise sauce, a
'pineapple' made of liver sausage, and of
course, the
jello mold.
This one in particular is a cherry ketchup one, which means it's pretty mild and tame. Especially when compared to some other popular options, such as lime jello with any cheese, and any jello with any kind of fish but
especially canned tuna or salmon.
"So, today, we'll be tapping into this as your new potential hobby and I'm going to challenge you to come up with your
own terrible Mid-Century style recipe to present to the class today. Bonus point for anyone willing to try each other's work, too! I have a
lot of great
resources and recipe cards for you to flip through to get inspiration, and even a blast chiller if you need your jello to set faster, and even vegan agar-agar for a plant-based alternative if that's a concern. Obviously, if you have any questions, fire away, but if not, then let's get to seeing what horrible things you can come up with!"