(Feel better now, Clarissa? Hope so, Little Darlin'!)
Well, I can look myself in the eye now.
What on earth is jellied madrilene (or even unjellied madrilene, for that matter)?
Here's a cute description of it I just found:
Jellied Madrilene
The Description :
A cold soup that is salty, sweet and tangy at the same time. Don't omit the lemon at the end - that is what makes all the difference.
The Recipe :
Take one can of Campbell's Beef Consome and refrigerate it overnight. Open the can and dump gelled form into a soup bowl. I recommend Stangl's Golden Blossom as the dinnerware pattern of choice for this presentation. The creamy beige background flecked with brown and the signature brown rim is most complimentary to the cool, translucency of the consome. Here is where the artfulness comes into play. Use a fork to disturb the can-shaped soup until it resembles a mound of rough 1" cubes. The cubes should have a careless lack of precision about them; do not make them look as if they came out of an ice-cube tray. Squeeze 1 -2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice over the top of the mound and garnish it with a two overlapping lemon slices that are thin
enough to read through. Use one single parsley leaf for an accent.
The Review:
Our panel of judges went to the test kitchens and gave this report:
The Mister: " What the hell is that?"
The College Man: "No, Ma.I'm not eating beef jello."
The Teen Queen: declined to participate.
The Cook: I don't care. I like it. It really does taste good, and even if it didn't, this is a fine example of the
Number One Rule around here: If it looks good, you will think it tastes good.Back to Clarissa:
My experience of it was in the early and mid-60s in the Edwardian Room and the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel. While my mother and I lived on TV dinners in a one-bedroom apartment in one part of Manhattan, my godparents lived in a multi-room golden palace-ette in another part of Manhattan.
Three or four times a year, my godmother would disdainfully peel my real clothes off of me, bedeck me with a frou-frou outfit from Saks or Best, and take me to one of the finer restaurants, where I learned the difference between a cream soup spoon and a consomme spoon.
Jellied Madrilene was a palate-cleanser between courses. It was served (OF COURSE!) with a consomme spoon in a consomme cup (a little dainty handle on each side). It's (as the description above says so well) soft beef jello, very cold, with wafer thin lemon slices atop. Don't confuse it with a finger bowl, served in a simlar bowl, also with the wafer thin lemon slices! Depending on how I remember it, it's delicious, or gross.
I haven't eaten it for nigh on 40 years...
