You’ve heard of the Bible Belt — but what about the Jell-O Belt?
Christy Spackman first heard that phrase when she was a kid, and it stuck with her for decades. As an adult, she went to culinary school, and eventually got a PhD in food studies. But even after all that, she still wasn’t sure when or exactly why people started referring to this particular region of the West — northern Arizona, Utah and parts of surrounding states — as the Jell-O Belt.
So, thanks to a recent grant from the Redd Center at Brigham Young University, she’s launched an ongoing project — a deep-dive into the cultural history of Jell-O that she calls: "Tightening the Jell-O Belt: Food, Faith, and Dietary Friction in the Intermountain West."
Spackman joined The Show to discuss the origins of her fascination with this colorful food and its colorful history.
Full conversation
CHRISTY SPACKMAN: When I was a kid, my grandmother would always have these crazy Jell-O concoctions. Her favorite one was some combination of cottage cheese, green jello and pistachio pudding with some nuts in it. And it sounds weird, but it was also delicious.
And so as I got older and became a little bit more aware of some of the culinary snobberies that exist in the world, I came to learn that that thing that I thought was delicious was also kind of lowbrow.
SAM DINGMAN: Well, help us kind of trace the “brow” level of Jell-O, because as I understand it, it's, it's been a real roller coaster ride.
SPACKMAN: That is a really accurate description. So, gelatin as a substance has actually been highly prized by chefs for a long time. It's hard to make. You have to boil bones for a long time, getting something that's clear requires a lot of work, so high-end French cuisine, you have aspic, so that jelly-like stuff that's often on top of a pate.
And so up until the late 1800s, making a gelatin, one, it was often savory, but two, it was really hard to do. And in the late 1800s, you get a researcher who figures out a way to make more or less instant gelatin, and then, General Foods kind of draws on that and starts adding flavorings to it, and you get these sweet-based gelatin desserts that become named Jell-O. And that actually is a major part of early 20th century culinary culture in the U.S.
DINGMAN: So there was a time, right, where these Jell-O dessert creations, like the one you were talking about from your own childhood. That was like a, considered a flashy thing to serve at a dinner party, right? It wasn't considered lowbrow. It was sort of a mark of domestic endeavor.
SPACKMAN: Yes, Laura Shapiro has this great book out there called “Perfection Salad” for anyone who wants to read up on this idea. And the original perfection salad, if I remember correctly, was a cabbage salad suspended in gelatin made in a mold. And so that's a lot of work to do that well.
DINGMAN: So, how did Jell-O lose that sense of flair or pride?
SPACKMAN: So food historians suggest that a lot of what changed was just the fact that you had this massive shift in culinary culture all around. So the 1950s and 1960s and the post-war boom where women start really re-entering the workforce, there's just a shift in how people cook. And part of that shift is facilitated by the food industry itself, which gets really excited about, “hey, we're going to cook for you. We're going to do things like make cake mixes.” And, and so there are these trends where culinary things that start out being really fancy, I mean, we all want a part of that.
DINGMAN: So am I tracking this correctly, that the way that Jell-O starts to be seen as less highbrow than it was in like the ‘40s and ‘50s is that it's like a little too easy?
SPACKMAN: I think that's part of it. I think also it's not necessarily highbrow in the ‘40s and ‘50s, it's mid-brow.
DINGMAN: It’s mid-brow, OK.
SPACKMAN: And there's something about the middle class that is both a really powerful thing where many people wish to be part of the crowd, but also a thing that especially with the countercultural movement in the 1970s where there's this whole emergence of what some food historians have called the brown food movement, like whole wheat bread, other things, and foods like Jell-O are just seen as not fitting that more helpful approach that eventually comes to dominate with diet culture in the 1980s and early 1990s.
DINGMAN: As I understand it, because of a lot of these factors, there is a period where Jell-O is sort of on the wane, right? And then it, it ends up making a comeback. What prompts that comeback?
SPACKMAN: Part of what prompts the comeback is General Foods gets really upset about their declining sales and they task a marketing manager with overcoming it, and he and his team come up with this idea of Jigglers, and it is amazing to me how ..
DINGMAN: Oh, right, Jell-O Jigglers.
SPACKMAN: How successful Jell-O Jigglers were.
DINGMAN: We're going to see if we can find an old Jell-O Jigglers commercial to play right here.
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SPACKMAN: And then they bring Bill Cosby on as their spokesperson. So this is before Cosby has had his “me too” moment. But, so you get this association of fun, family friendly, it's definitely something that at least for folks living in Utah and along the Jell-O Belt, as we are going to call it, who have a lot of kids, that this is something that is an easy dessert to make with your children.
It's, you could consider it maybe relatively healthy, or at least it's low fat. And in the 1980s and 1990s, that is the, the low fat craze moment. There's the tension, however, that this is the same time when fraternities and sororities are getting really into Jell-O wrestling contests and Jell-O shots.
DINGMAN: Right. That's a real tension.
SPACKMAN: It is a real tension.
DINGMAN: Finger food for your kids to shake while they eat and fraternities and sororities. So is this the moment where this idea of the Jell-O Belt emerges, or was the idea of the Jell-O Belt pre-existing and the meaning of it just sort of changed?
SPACKMAN: It's really post-'88 that this association of Utah with Jell-O starts to emerge, and I do think some of that is related to the way that Jell-O shows up at community gatherings. And in 2001, Jell-O becomes the official state snack of the state of Utah.
DINGMAN: Wow.
SPACKMAN: And that is, I think the moment when it that relationship between Utah specifically and then members of the faith most commonly associated with Utah more generally, so members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, start getting this overlay of, folks from Utah eat Jell-O.
DINGMAN: One other thing with Jell-O I wanna make sure we don't go past is you mentioned your grandmother, if I'm not mistaken, housewives, presenting Jell-O creations in the middle of the 20th century is kind of a capstone to an evening. I have the sense that there is a somewhat gendered relationship with Jell-O. Is that fair to say?
SPACKMAN: Yes. Historically, the gendered relationship with Jell-O was that male chefs working for very rich people made Jell-O, except it wasn't called Jell-O. They made gelatins, they made aspics.
And it is in the 20th century with the invention of Jell-O that it moves from being in the professional kitchen into the home kitchen. And when you make that transition, especially in the U.S., that is a transition that often moves it into a feminine space. And culinary historians and other folks have pointed out that once you move something from this masculine space into the feminine space, it also loses some of its cultural cachet.
There is this really strong association when people talk about Jell-O in Utah, to use it as a slur almost. So, so, it's this moment of taking a food and mobilizing all of the food's connotations with childhood or with femininity to describe an entire people.
