If it was there, you'd eat it...1970 slogan

An essential part of the Jell-O Show is the Tacky Food Buffet, where anything goes as long as it is technically edible. It's awfully fun and I usually have a t-shirt table set up in the same room so I get to observe people trying things and laughing.

Naturally there is lots of Easter candy, (best if it is leftover, post-Holiday), the usual Peeps, orange peanuts, and jelly beans. I think a substantial portion of the Kerns Art Center budget goes to junk food for the masses. I myself usually make fortified Jell-O in candy molds so it can be popped out and displayed on white or clear plates, and I sometimes get fancy if I have a day or two before the show to make them. I like to use Christmas and Valentine's Day molds, for fun, and sometimes throw in things like the Virgin Mary made from a mold I have, just so someone can bite off her head.

Those take a lot of time but I will make some, just because they are always there and people would miss them. The artist always needs new ideas though, so this time I looked around and I had some pudding (Health food brand rather than Jell-O) so I thought I'd cook some up, add some extra gelatin, and make Pudding Plops. They worked pretty well, and I even ate some last night to see if they would be edible.

The taste was not great, but that might have been because I used almond milk instead of cow's, so I will get some milk and real Jell-O pudding for the show version. Taste is not, of course, the primary feature of tacky success. The texture is interesting. One expects pudding to be smooth and creamy, not toothsome and springy. I did find them quite edible, and they can be served on toothpicks, so we're definitely going to be eating some plops.
I will resist extruding them into poop-like piles, too graphic. I added coconut and pecans to mine so I could actually eat them and not have to throw them away. They aren't the kind of thing you can gift to the neighbors.

Of course graphic is tacky, as the recurring kitty litter and dirt creations will attest to. One year I pressed letters into white bread and made words, starting with "Tacky Food" and going on to scatalogical terms referring to the reality that you were eating something that was not at all good for you to eat. They weren't popular, on a table that gets scavenged and devoured rapidly. I had to throw some away, even after demonstrably sampling them with pretended delight. Not sure why this photo is so giant, blame Photobucket, where you can see lots of old Jell-O art photos in my albums at mcwho_photos

Other famous tacky foods have been things like tuna aspic, chocolate-covered brussels sprouts, and these fabulous casseroles and appetizers that one artist makes from real recipes put out in the earlier days of Jell-O. Vienna sausages are tacky, especially dipped in gelatinized french dressing. No matter how bad it looks I always try everything presented as food art. Sometimes the recipes are fantastic.

My most famous tacky food was the Jell-O sushi, real sushi with strips of gelatin substituted for the vegies or protein. Regular rice, nori, and wasabi. Those were tasty. One fantastic idea that I've never made is to make a torso and have removable organs, that you could fish out and eat. Like an Operation game. It would be terrific fun to make and zombie-like in appearance, a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

I well remember when the tacky food was the only reason my son would come to the show. Kids always go wild and overeat the junk and it's somewhat amusing to see horrified parents try to control the input. The timing of the show is before dinner for many and lots of bargains are struck. No matter what, everything gets eaten, except for the occasional tofu dog piece wrapped in fake bacon.

Eat at your own risk. If you are new to Jell-O Art, this might be a good place to start...bring something weird to eat. You want to work in a really clean kitchen and use all precautions but as far as I know no one has ever gotten sick, except for sugar overload and orange mouth from cheese doodles.

See you there! This last image is the shell that my figure will be standing in, not quite finished. It's about two feet across. As always, the photos don't really show the glory.