Watch it Jiggle

Just who invented gelatin and how and why did they decide to grind up horse hooves?

Gelatin has been around forever, even before people knew what collagen, the main protein in gelatin, was they were using collagen rich parts of animals (Yes, that includes hooves - more on that later) to help thicken sauces, soups and foods. This is no different than you noticing that leftovers from a roast thicken as they cool on the bottom of a pan.

SPOILER ALERT – The Squeamish should skip this paragraph.

The overwhelming majority of gelatin in made from pigskin and cowhide – only about 25% of gelatin in extracted from bones. And its not the bones that are ground up to make gelatin, the collagen is extracted by slowing heating skin and/or bones. After the collagen is removed, the extraction is defatted, filtered, purified and its pH is adjusted to 5.5, a level slightly less acidic than coffee. It is only at this point is gelatin dried into sheets or ground into powdered form. 

Gelatin, the product is pretty amazing – like butter, it melts around a normal body temperature, this provides a quality often called mouth feel – you may have heard the expression ‘melts in your mouth’, well gelatin does, but no one really says that about Jell-o. But it’s not just Jell-o brand, gelatin is used in marshmallows, candy, to stabilize ice cream, yogurt, and cream and along with sugar, it is used to add mouth feel in low fat products.

As for the inventing, powdered gelatin had been available to home cooks since the mid-1800s. It was Charles Knox who invented a process to extract and powder gelatin into product with consistent results. Mr. Knox also managed to market his brand nationally, setting the standard for all other brands. Knox’s eventual usurper, Jell-o was launched in 1897 but didn’t really become popular until shortly before the depression.

At home we tend to think of gelatin as a boxed product but even in the Jell-o capitol of the US, Utah (highest consumption per capita), gelatin is mostly an industrial product used in processing foods, cosmetics, photography and pharmaceuticals.

Remember, no matter what you hear on the street, hallways or internet – wait – playground, gelatin is processed by slowly heating - usually skin but sometimes bones over moderately low heat until the collagen is extracted. Sometimes making foods isn’t pretty but it isn’t as grizzly as grinding horse hooves.