Why does nobody talk about 1970s Jell-O salad measuring chaos?

I picked up a 1974 church fundraiser cookbook and tried the 'Sunset Surprise' recipe, but it took me three hours to figure out the gelatin setting times because every single recipe assumes you already know 'soft set' vs 'firm set' without explaining the difference. Is it just me, or should old cookbooks have a conversion chart for vague terms like this, and how long did it take you to crack the code on your weirdest find?

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caseywest9d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, are you sure the recipe said "soft set" and not "soft-gel" or something? lol Ive flipped through a ton of old community cookbooks and half the time those terms mean totally different things depending on the decade. The real trick I found is that "soft set" usually means itll barely hold a spoon upright, but "firm set" means you can slice it into cubes without it falling apart. But yeah, its a mess, even my grandma admitted she just guessed and hoped for the best most of the time. Took me way too long to learn that gelatin setting time also depends on how cold your fridge is, so those recipe timings are basically useless anyway.