Last week, my friend David returned from a family barbecue talking about the dessert his granddaughter brought to the event - pretzel salad. If you’re someone who was born and raised in Sussex County or nearby Pennsylvania, you may be familiar with this potluck and church supper favorite. And, you may be aware of some of the unusual features of this “salad” that is typically served for dessert.

According to food historians, the recipe for this dish first appeared in the 1960s, published by the Jell-O company in their promotional booklet “The Joys of Jell-O,” designed to introduce the new sweet, fruit-flavored gelatin product to consumers. Others debate that the recipe was originally included in a community cookbook from Brentwood, Pennsylvania (located near Pittsburgh).

Calling it a salad comes from the trend to serve a small, molded, fruit-gelatin dish alongside a main dish at large gatherings. Before this sweet version of a gelatin dish came onto the market, savory aspics had been quite popular for hundreds of years. As early as the 1300s, French chefs prepared “calf’s foot jelly” dishes that were studded with all sorts of ingredients. Recipes instructed cooks to encase diced meats, chopped vegetables, or seafood in tomato-flavored or clear gelatin.

But, this was a dish reserved for the wealthy, who typically had kitchen help to complete the time-consuming process of boiling animal bones, tendons, and hooves to extract collagen, the basis for gelatin. By the mid-1800s, an industrialist named Peter Cooper (who owned a glue factory) patented the first gelatin sheets he called “portable.” Fifty years later, Charles Knox created the process of drying gelatin into unflavored granules, eliminating the messy step of boiling animal parts. Soon afterwards, a husband and wife team added sugar and fruit flavors and Jell-O was born.

To understand the hot and cold water steps in preparing a commercial box of Jell-O, we could turn to Fannie Farmer in her Boston Cooking School cookbook, where she advises that gelatin in its raw state is termed collagen, a transparent, tasteless substance from the connective tissue of animals. It is soluble in hot water, and when subsequently treated with cold water, it swells and sets.

If you have never seen pretzel salad, the slice in the photo can give you an idea of what to expect. The “crust” is made from crushed pretzels mixed with sugar and melted butter, then baked to set. The creamy middle layer is a combination of cream cheese and whipped cream (or artificial whipped topping) stirred together with sugar and spread across the cooled crust.

The topping is made from strawberry Jell-O and sliced strawberries, spread over the creamy layer as it starts to set. Typical garnishes include a mini-pretzels or strawberry slices to provide a hint to the ingredients. This is usually made in a 9 by 13-inch clear glass pan, so the colors and textures are visible. The flavor combination is delightful, crunchy, salty crust, creamy inside, and sweet strawberry on top.

If you search for Jell-O salad recipes on the internet, you will find everything fromthe old-school tomato-aspic dishes to a range of sweet and savory options. The strawberry Jell-O salad has a number of variations with substituted fruit, including pears, raspberries, peaches, and plums. I’ve included a recipe for strawberry pretzel salad, it’s worth the effort to make it to share at your next gathering. However, I’m not featuring the 1950s recipes for bright green Jell-O with cucumbers, olives, tuna, and celery or the one for shrimp in aspic, they’re just a bit too retro for my tastes.

Pretzel Salad

2 C pretzels
1/2 C melted butter
1 T brown sugar
2 T sugar
8 oz cream cheese
1 C sugar
8 oz Cool Whip
6 oz box strawberry Jell-O
1 C boiling water
1 C ice cubes
4 C sliced strawberries

Preheat oven to 350F. Place pretzels in a zip top bag and crush with a rolling pin. Transfer to a mixing bowl; add butter and sugar, stirring to combine. Press mixture along the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish, making sure to cover the corners. Bake for 7 minutes; allow to cool completely. In a mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese and sugar. When smooth, fold in cool whip. Spread evenly over the cooled pretzel crust, making sure to cover the edges. Stir together Jell-O and boiling water until all the solids are dissolved. Stir in ice cubes and sliced berries, reserving a few for garnish. When ice has melted, place in the refrigerator to cool for 15 minutes. Pour over the creamy layer and refrigerate until set, about 4 hours. To serve, cut into squares and garnish with a strawberry slice. Yield: 10 servings.