Actual thought I had in the shower!
Gelatin was originally and still often is derived from meat by-products, so wouldn’t it make more sense as a meat dish?
I looked it up, and it turns out that accounts of aspic (a savory gelatin dish) predate the earliest record of gelatin desserts by more than half a millennium!
Maybe the mid-20th-century meat Jell-O trend makes more sense than I thought
More sense? I don’t agree with you. Gelatin is a blank slate. Has pretty much zero flavor and can take on the taste of pretty much whatever you put into it. It gels up. That’s pretty much it, it’s up to you to decide what you want to do with it.
That said, it’s very versatile cooking ingredient. Is great in soups and stocks. Making gummies. Making gels, custards, pudding. It’s great as a binder. Not a great emulsifier, but you can do it with enough blending, however it breaks at higher temperatures.
Savory gelatin tho… I’m so glad I was born too late to enjoy a 1970s midwestern potluck dinner party.
Wait until you learn what head cheese is.
In Italy, I would arguably state that most users of gelatin are in savory dishes, mostly similar to the aspic main picture. Only exception I know is panna cotta that needs gelatin to set. Sweet Jell-O for me is a US symbol.