Principles

It’s no longer necessary to extract gelatin from bones in your kitchen. Purified, granular gelatin and gelatin sheets have long been available for use in the pantry. Many excellent gelatin-based salads can be made with little labor using these products. However, most gelatin products today are made with sweetened prepared mixes whose high sugar content and heavy reliance on artificial color and flavor make their appropriateness as salads somewhat questionable. (Often, in a cafeteria line, you will see in the salad section little squares of gelatin with a lettuce leaf underneath and a dab of mayonnaise on top, and in the dessert section the identical product, without the lettuce leaf and with a dab of whipped cream in place of the mayo.)