Davis Gelatine Recipe Ideas

Around Christmas, DJ Bebe presented me with this fabulous culinary guide to gelatine (yes, it has really taken me 2 months to write this post). I believe it was discovered in some of her mother’s recipe books. If you ever need to make:

• Chicken and Pineapple in Apsic
• Spiced Tomato Brawn
• Mint Jelly Cubes
• Midday salad (cucumber, pineapple and mint in layers of jelly)
• Fruit Salad Sparkle (yes, ginger beer and jelly, TOGETHER)
• Peppermint Sponge
• Milk Jelly

Let me, know, I can photocopy the relevant pages.

Personally, the highlight for me was the gelatine based Christmas pudding. I think we will have Christmas 2006 at my house this year so I can make this delicious, rubbery dessert.

But the Davis Gelatine Book doesn’t stop there… inside it’s full of handy hints:

• Drink two teaspoons of gelatine a day in fruit juice to strengthen your nails FOR FOUR MONTHS. Yuch. I am sick of jello after 2 days.
• Weight control – fill your stomach with jelly and cut down on those nasty cravings
• Refresh your blankets in a rinse of jelly
• Stiffen your linens, cottons and silks with, yes, you guessed it, jelly. You can also stiffen your collars, lace (nothing like a stiff peniour), and your petticoats.
• Prevent your nylons from snagging by rinsing in a jelly solution… ick, imagine how sticky that would be at the end of the day.

Finally, the booklet ends with a stern health warning:
“Why you should always use Davis Packaged Gelatine

Housewives are warned against purchasing Gelatine in ‘loose’ forms, that is not properly printed and sealed packets. Loose gelatine can be gelatine not manufactured for food purposes, but for Technical usage [oh my god, technical usage gelatine, no get it away] and may contain chemical impurities. Loose gelatine is easily contaminated on exposure to air, it readily takes up moisture and in that state is apt to develop bacteria.

Because it is impossible to detect technical gelatine on appearance, the Australian State Governments have wisely directed that gelatine for consumption must be properly packaged and labelled with the name of the manufacturer and the declaration ‘Edible Gelatine – for food’.”

Thank goodness for that. We may be running out of water, and the health system is a debacle, but at least my gelatine products will be pure.