In 1976, my family celebrated America’s bi-centennial with red, white and blue Jell-o™ parfaits that used Cool Whip™ for the white part. These fancy desserts represented the United States of America. I knew from the flag that the white represented the states, and because my mother was a teacher, that the red was courage and the blue was justice.
The ad with this recipe had been printed in nearly every magazine as patriotic inspiration.
Those currently prone to over-analyzation might make gentle fun, pointing at processed foods and the like, but besides all of us not quite knowing how to pronounce the word “parfait”, none of us held any irony in our hearts: we really were celebrating the 200th birthday of the history of a nation with a spoon.
It wasn’t only seen in the midwest - across the country people began to put their own spins on it. Strawberries in the red part, blueberries in the blue. Kmart™ began to sell tall flared glasses, just like at the soda shops.
We used jelly jars, setting them up on the kitchen counter to make an assembly line, like when we would color Easter Eggs. It took forever to make these because each layer had to set before you put the next layer on, and the next had to be kind of already cooled before you ladled it on top, but not so chilled that it was too thick because the sides had to be perfectly straight.
Science.
I later discovered that the US flag did not fly on July 4, 1776. A version wasn’t officially adopted until 1777, and it took until 1782 for the Continental Congress to give the colors definitive representations:
Red was “hardiness and valor”.
Blue was “vigilance, perseverance, and justice”.
I had those right as a kid, but white wasn’t about the states, it stood for “purity and innocence”.
We can strive to be brave, and work all our lives to defend fair judgement and treatment, but we cannot become innocent. Innocent is where we begin, not-knowing, inexperienced… we move away from that every day towards enlightenment, perspective…wisdom.
Also, I’m not sure how Cool Whip™ represented “purity and innocence”.
Again, it’s hard to put all that into a parfait glass.
While delicious, the best thing for me about this dessert was holding it up to the sun… light streamed through it, illuminating the chemical miracles of Red 40 and Blue 1. For me, this treat was all about the colors and the light.
The middle layer was always opaque, a cloud in a clear sky, but as seen through the actual science of light, that layer would represent of the sum of all the colors in the spectrum, added together.
Alas, the same is not true in science of Jell-o™, which is why we had to use the Cool-Whip™. In our house, it was the metaphorical non-dairy representation of the best of all possible intentions.
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