Old Jell-O pudding

"You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients."
-- Julia Child (August 15, 1912 - August 13, 2004)

Now that my apples have been long gone I haven't made any apple pies for quite a while. I still am making pumpkin muffins regularly, but they are becoming common. I won't say "Familiarity breeds contempt" as we all still enjoy eating them. But I wanted some other kind of dessert.

I have been going through boxes of Jell-O at a fast rate and Mom only has a few boxes left. My mother and brother have been eating Jell-O like it was going out of style and I seem to only mange a few bites before the bowl is empty and I have to make another batch.

So I rooted around the back of the pantry looking for something else. On the bottom shelf, in the back, I found boxes and boxes of Jell-O pudding. Ya... something different.

So this morning I decided to make pudding. Chocolate pudding. Looking at the directions on the box I noticed the mail-in expiration date for an offer for a "special pie carrier". The expiration date was: 9/1/69. Yes, you read right and I did not make a mistake in typing. This box of pudding mix is over 37 years old! The box somehow made it way across household moves to be here.

Well! As my mother and former girlfriends know, an old expiration date does not stop me from eating the food item. Still... 37 years gave me pause.

The package was still sealed. The mix was soft and had not hardened. A good sign. I opened the package, and using my finger, tasted a small amount of the mix. Tasted ok. I tasted more. Still ok.

Well... no harm in mixing milk with it to make a batch of pudding. So I did. The pudding mixed up well. I licked the mix off the mixer's beaters. Tasted fine.

The pudding mix was an instant mix and was to set in 5 minutes. The mix seemed to be thickening so I placed the smaller dishes of the pudding in the refrigerator.

A few hours later I found the pudding hadn't set. The pudding was the consistency of a chocolate milkshake. Apparently the years have not been kind to the ingredients that make the pudding set. I ate one dish of the pudding. Or I should say "almost drank" the pudding. It tasted ok. Mom thought it had a slight stale aftertaste, but then women have a finer sense of taste than men do.

I am alive several hours later with no ill effects. Time for more pudding. First, however, may be another apple pie... this morning my brother surprised me by buying several bags of apples for me and saying something about me making a pie.

Oh yeah.. I put one bowl of pudding in the freezer. That should harden it up, though I may end up with a chocolate Popsicle!