My grandmother grew up in the twenties and yes, gelatin and peanut butter were the "new" luxury foods for her. She served a Jell-O salad at every meal. I hate peanut butter but I can almost always eat a gelatin salad. Back when I was a kid there were vegetable flavored Jell-Os. Grandma used to make a Jell-O salad with cucumbers and horseradish--delightful on a hot summer day. Carrot and raisin salad was another of her specialties--in or out of Jell-O. Fresh peach ice cream was an everyday dessert at the end of summer. Peaches were so plentiful that she mixed them with cottage cheese or put the ice cream in Jell-O. Fresh pears with cottage cheese or in Jell-O was another treat.
Cottage cheese was another weird salad ingredient at Grandma's table. She said because there was so much of it on the farm when they had cows so she knew a lot of ways to use it. At family dinners my sister still serves cottage cheese with sweet peppers and green and red onions in the same turquoise bowl that grandma used. We used to top tomato slices with cottage cheese. This time of year there would be a huge, cold platter of sliced garden tomatoes on the table for every meal. She made something close to Gazpacho because there were so many tomatoes and she didn't like to can them. I prefer Gazpacho to that one. Grandma had too much other stuff to can so we had to eat up the tomatoes fresh. Sometimes there were so many tomatoes that she sprinkled them with sugar and we ate them for dessert.
No one made salsa in those days. Now I mainly make salsas with my tomatoes. When I make a salad it is lettuce, onion, cucumbers, sunflower seeds and whatever tomatoes are ripe. Sometimes I bake them in home made mac and cheese or eat them fresh on hamburgers instead of ketchup. I hate ketchup.
In the winter, every Sunday dinner at Grandma's started a relish tray of pickled Brussels sprouts, carrots, cucumbers, beets, and pickled watermelon rind. Ever had dill pickled garlic? Not bad. Ever have a peanut butter and tomato sandwich? My kids love them but I can't choke them down. Another economical Kansas food adaptation thanks to the Depression. There were lots of watermelons and other melons for fruit salads too. The dressing was ginger ale for the kids, wine for the grown ups. My kids from Mexico tell me that there is a tomato and watermelon salad that is very good. Not so sure about that one but we do Noche Buena Salad every Christmas Eve, down to the beets and peanuts--s6