As an immigrant ( 🙂 ) from South Africa, albeit of British descent, there were lots of new things to learn when I arrived in the UK….one of which was shopping! Now you may think that is would be easy knowing which store was more upmarket, which sold the cheapest ‘made in china using slave-labour’ products; therefore to be avoided, which dishwashing liquid is the best, which soap powder to use and whether or not a product was good or bad. But no….. it is only through trial and error you finally find the ones you like and eliminate the not so good or rubbish products. One of the most intruiging products was jelly! Back in SA our jelly came in powder form… crystallised flavoured sugar really, but nevertheless it contained the by-product of cows hooves and therefore once heated and dissolved, then refridgerated for a few hours it made the wobbly stuff. You also had to use the whole packet at once or else it coagulated into lumpy blobs. Despite that, the powder was also fun to poke your tongue into for a sugary treat but if you dropped the packet it made an awful sticky mess on the floor, if you tried to sneak some out the packet and breathed in too soon…you could also choke to death. 🙂
Here in the UK I discovered that jelly came in icky sticky cubes
a square of jelly
and
jelly cubes
Makes perfect sense really…..if you want just a bit of jelly you cut off a cube or two and save the rest for later. And although the packet boasts ‘natural colours’ there is nothing natural about the colours at all.
but why would you want to eat something that was just sugar and ground up cow hooves……..
indeed. however, it does taste really good with ice-cream 🙂
Totally true! In the US, what the Brits call jelly is a spread for bread and toast–as in peanut butter and jelly. Jelly is called Jello in the US and you only eat it when you are ill and can’t eat anything else. 🙂
ahh yes!! I forgot about that. peanut butter and jelly!!! of course. Just love the variety of ways the english langues is used. Like pavements and sidewalks. I remember having ice-cream and jelly when I had my tonsils out at 7 years of age 🙂 no bad association there!
yes, when I found out what jelly/jello was made of, I gave it up……..
mmm, yes a good point. I often say that I am ‘vegetarian’, however with so much of what goes into our foods…I am not sure that is entirely true. The one thing though that I am categorical about is no chicken and only organic eggs. No compromise on that at all.