Ellis Island

‘The Joys of Jell-O’ Is a Time Capsule of Mid-Century American Cooking | Eater

"From the 1910s through the 1950s, this immigration processing site doubled as an early introduction to American food culture when company representatives handed out square samples of brightly colored powdered gelatin to arriving newcomers; one German immigrant recalled being frightened by a wiggling piece of orange gelatin. Those distributions helped frame the product as part of the assimilation process—anthropologists later used possession of gelatin molds at community potlucks as a crude measure of acculturation—so the location functioned not only as a gateway to the country but as a literal point of culinary onboarding for many immigrants." - Aimee Levitt