Jiggle!: A Cookbook

A definitive, joyful cookbook of new-fangled gelatin recipes for cooks who want to explore this trendy throwback ingredient.

Gelatin is back. Based on recent articles about gelatin and designed gelatin-based foods featured in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Vogue, The New Yorker, and atlasobscura.com, gelatin is exploding on the culinary scene. New pop-ups in New York City are doing jelly cakes and so are influential Korean bakeries in L.A. The New York Times recently published a nostalgia-tinged story headlined, "This Thanksgiving, Make a Jell-O Salad Instead of Cranberry Sauce."

But according to two-time Emmy winning producer Peter DiMario, whose pandemic hobby took him deep into gelatin cooking creativity, it's not time for more lime JELL-O salad with cottage cheese and walnuts or cherry JELL-O with canned fruit salad; it's time to take the gelatin explosion to its heights. In Jiggle!, he and food veteran co-author Judith Choate feature recipes that are sleek, fun, and modern but not pretentious. Forgotten are the pedestrian jelly molds of the past. Jiggle! is a well-rounded book of information and recipes taking a new look at working with that once stodgy foodstuff, gelatin.

Following an introduction detailing the gelatin basics—the different forms (including a vegan agar-agar), how to build layers, float fruits, and suspend edible glitter—Jiggle! takes us on a colourful, wobble-filled adventure in 50 recipes, ranging from stunning desserts (like Cherries and Cream; Orange Creme Jiggly Dream; and Gimmie S'more Wiggle), cocktails and other drinks (Boozy Birch Beer Float, Bloody Mary Brunch Shot, and Jiggly Bellini), to savoury dishes (My Funny Galantine and Goats 'n' Beets). Rounded out with beautiful colour photography, gelatin becomes delicious, playful, edible modern art.