Before boxed gelatin, a proper aspic began with boiling calf's feet for hours
Meat jelly sounds like a relic of 1950s dinner parties, but a 9th-century poet compared a jellied carp to rubies on a silver plate. From Song dynasty Kaifeng to Russian New Year tables, cooks worldwide have turned collagen-rich bones into shimmering, sliceable savoury jelly.
Aspic is a savoury gelatin set from meat stock, usually encasing pieces of meat, seafood, egg or vegetables; at its plainest it is simply soup that has set solid. Meat versions came long before fruit or vegetable ones. Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi wrote verses about a saffron-tinted jelly of Iraqi carp in the 9th century, a Song-era chronicle lists two meat aspics sold in the restaurants of Kaifeng, and the French cookbook Le Viandier gives a detailed recipe around 1375.
In the early 19th century Marie-Antoine Carême devised chaudfroid, food cooked hot and served cold, often coated in aspic to keep fish and poultry moist. Jelly then meant boiling calf's feet for hours, or using agar or isinglass, so aspic stayed a luxury for honoured guests or invalids. Boxed gelatin arrived by the 1870s but still needed cooking with egg whites and shells and straining through a bag. Packaged gelatin finally took off in America in the 1890s, and by the 1920s a third of cookbook salads involved it.
The chemistry is about collagen. Trotters, heads and calf's feet release plenty of gelatin, poultry less, so cooks use less water. Fish stock is usually too weak and needs doubling or extra gelatin, and because fish gelatin melts at a lower temperature, fish aspic dissolves more readily on the tongue. Vegetables contain none; pectin does the equivalent job in jams. Sealing food in jelly also shuts out air and bacteria, helping it keep longer.
Many cuisines have their own version. Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians simmer bones for about 5 to 8 hours to make kholodets, a winter holiday dish served with horseradish or mustard. Serbs judge pihtije by whether it slices cleanly, like glass. Romanian piftie belonged to the winter pig slaughter and Christmas, while Danes spread aspic called sky over cold cuts on open sandwiches.
Source: Aspic
