Nailing jelly to a wall: is it possible? (2005)

mmicrosoftedging 4 days ago 21 commentsRead Article on greem.co.uk

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dhosek•about 4 hours ago

I was a bit surprised to discover the whole jelly-jello language thing. I’d always assumed when people spoke of nailing jelly to a wall that they were talking about something jam-like, not jello-like. I’ve not done the experiments, but I would assume attempting the former would be much less successful.

OkayPhysicist•about 3 hours ago

They also got it wrong in their explanation. To Americans, jelly is jam with the fruit bits filtered out, leading to a homogeneous spread. Jam has crushed fruit, giving it a thicker, uneven texture, and preserves are whole-ass pieces of fruit boiled down in syrup. Marmalade is jam with citrus rinds. As listed here, they are sorted in descending desirability for inclusion in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Windchaser•about 3 hours ago

> As listed here, they are sorted in descending desirability for inclusion in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Surely you mean ascending!

Preserves > marmalade & jam > jelly

I want maximal fruit flavor for combination with my peanut butter.

Which makes me consider other options. Peanut butter and banana is a classic, ofc, but should I try even-more-concentrated fruits? Fruit jerky? Dried mangos? But then the texture would be weird; probably have to chop up the dried fruit, first. Or what about making a fruit-based tea, then using that as the water for making the bread?

Or, hell, we could subvert the entire PB&J structure. Use strawberry fruit jerky as the "bread", and PB + ... banana? as the filling. (Considered various "bread" fillings, like crushed Ritz crackers. I dunno, I'd try it. Strawberry jerky, with a little peanut butter and crushed ritz crackers in between)

bigstrat2003•33 minutes ago

This is very much a personal preference thing, I suppose. When I make a PB&J, I want no pieces of fruit whatsoever. Jam is acceptable but not preferred, while preserves are too chunky and I would just not make a PB&J at that point. Marmalade I do not use for anything because I find the bitter flavor to be extremely unpleasant.

walthamstow•about 3 hours ago

Jam can be smooth in Britain too, the cheap ones usually are. The opposite, with chunks of fruit, is conserve. In all my years of watching TV, I've never heard an American say the word jam, it must not be very popular compared to jelly.

OkayPhysicist•about 2 hours ago

Unless it's relevant to the conversation ("grab some strawberry jam when you're at the store, not the strawberry jelly"), Americans are also likely to use "jelly" as the catch all for the various "preserves meant for spreading". I guess that's kind of alluded to by my suggestion to put any of them on a peanut butter and "jelly" sandwich.

abanana•about 2 hours ago

Regarding Britain, "conserve" used to mean posh jam, but nowadays it seems to be more of a marketing word - a brand trying to pretend they're posh, similar to how pretentious restaurants use French words for no obvious reason.

"Smooth jam" here in the UK is sometimes labelled as jelly, like this kind of thing:

https://www.ocado.com/products/tiptree-blackberry-jelly/1053...

ghc•about 2 hours ago

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in New England jam seems more popular than jelly. The FDA regulates the labels...jelly is made from fruit juice, while jam is made from fruit chunks. The only jelly I routinely see is concord grape jelly. Jams are usually apricot, raspberry, or strawberry.

Given the number of small batch jams available at various farmers markets, my guess would be that for smaller farms, making jam is more practical than jelly.

bigstrat2003•31 minutes ago

Jam is more popular than jelly, in my experience, but (as OkayPhysicist said) many people use the word "jelly" incorrectly to mean any kind of fruit spread.

seany•about 1 hour ago

There's also the pectin vs gelatin, and temperature of the test. Some of the precursors of things like Tonkotsu broth (lots of chicken/pig feet) can be fairly firm at 20°c, and nearly solid at 10°.

nephihaha•about 2 hours ago

The traditional Scots for a jam sandwich is a "jeelie piece", which shows that the word (or a close relative) had some currency here.

etothet•about 1 hour ago

But can you glue it? "Jelly" should be added here: https://www.thistothat.com

mrhottakes•16 minutes ago

Possible for me? Yes. For others? Not yet.

FiatLuxDave•about 2 hours ago

This vaguely reminds me of an old SPAM bouncing experiment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38292161

egypturnash•about 4 hours ago

This page is copyright 2005 by Graeme Cole. What are you allowed to do with it? Pfft. Anything within the realms of common sense, really. I don't want to prescribe rigidly what people can and can't do with it, so I've decided on a benchmark. It's this: you're allowed to do with this page anything you wouldn't mind me doing with your cat. So yes, you can photoshop it for comedy effect, you can copy bits of it for illustrative purposes and so on, but you can't steal it and pass it off as your own.

cjs_ac•about 4 hours ago

Meta-study: How many times can you child submit a 'is this cliched saying physically possible?' experiment to a science fair before their teachers realise that they're taking the piss?

nephihaha•about 2 hours ago

Yes, but freeze it first.

cactusplant7374•about 4 hours ago

Nailing anything to the wall depends on the properties of said thing.

not_a_bot_4sho•about 4 hours ago

If you're going to quote Abraham Lincoln, you should at least give credit