I Wanna Talk About This Shot

i wanna talk about this shot

Food Crime: Frosty the Slawman

so a while ago, I saw this photo going around on tumblr:

an ad from an old magazine. there's a horrifying gelatin cabbage snowman in the middle with green olives slices for eyes, wearing a bell pepper hat and smoking a carrot pipe. the ad says "welcome new man in your life! Frosty Slaw Man with that Hellmann's touch. this is no place for second best...this is the place for Hellmann's...real mayonnaise."

the recipe for said snowman is written out underneath (but we'll get to that later)

at first, I thought this was photoshopped. I mean, "welcome new man in your life"? that feels like a translation error, or someone being silly on purpose.

but guess what! turns out, Frosty Slaw Man is real!

and soon...he will be mine. let's get cooking

(full disclosure: I crafted this snowman and took notes about it over a year ago. and then, like with many things in my life, I forgot about him, and let him drift into the ADHD void of Things I'm Not Currently Staring At, where object permanence is tentative and largely unrealized.

but here we are! and here he is: the slaw man. it's time to share him with you, so that you can suffer as I have suffered, and/or rejoice in my gelatin creation!)

so this recipe photo originally came from Mid-Century Menu (archive link), a blog that seems like one after my own heart, and which once tried to make the Slaw Man (with not much success; but we'll get back to that)! but it's not just that blog that has copies of this ad. I also found it on reddit, and in a few different places on ebay!

an ebay listing for the page containing the hellmann's ad, listed for $12.99 or best offer. the listing is titled "1963 Vacation In Adirondack Mountains / Hellmann's Snowman - Vintage Print Ad" (because on the other side of the magazine page, there's an ad for the adirondack mountains)

lookit that guy! he's a real guy!

both the reddit post and some of the ebay listings say that this is from 1963 (though I haven't been able to figure out which magazines it was printed in, to confirm this for myself). but in looking this up, I discovered something else fun! there's another version of this ad!

an almost identical copy of the slaw man ad, but instead of saying hellmann's, all of the labels say Best Foods.

Best Foods is what Hellmann's stuff is called on the west coast, and the "this is no place for second best" thing makes a lot more sense when you consider that the ad was probably made for Best Foods first, and then just reused and rebranded for the east coast

the more you know!

anyway the benefit of finding this alternate ad is that the scan on this image is a lot clearer, and so the recipe is more readable! and in looking at it, I've realized something important:

when Mid-Century Menu tried this recipe, they got an ingredient amount wrong.

the slaw man recipe:

Best Foods Frosty Slaw Man Salad ...surprisingly easy to make. Serves 12 hungry people.

6 envelopes plain gelatin
3/4 cup cold water
3 cups Best Foods Real Mayonnaise
3 teaspoons salt
3 lbs cottage cheese, cream style
2 medium heads cabbage, grated or finely chopped, making 12 cups.

Soften gelatin in cold water; stir over hot water till dissolved. Mix with Best Foods Real Mayonnaise, salt, cottage cheese. Fold in grated cabbage.

For Head - Pack salad into 1lb. cottage cheese carton. Chill until firm.

For Body - Pack salad into two 6 cup bowls. Chill until firm. (Or use one bowl...turn out when firm...then refill.)

To Form Snowman - Unmold one bowl on platter, rounded side down. Top with salad from second bowl, rounded side up. (Two flat sides meet, forming a ball.)

Unmold head; set on body. Make carrot pipe, green or red pepper hat, sliced olive eyes and buttons, tiny tomato nose, cucumber or carrot stick broom and parsley scarf.

For a larger group, make additional slaw - pack into cake pan; use as base.

when they made their beloved Slaw Man, they had the water amount written down as 1/4 cup, but looking at this scan up close, it is actually 3/4 cup of water! something that might make a significant difference, considering we're working with gelatin!

(there's also another change I want to make compared to what they did, when I do this recipe. but we'll get into that in a sec.)

for now: we begin

so. there's no way I'm making a Slaw Man this large. I am just one person, and considering the ingredients of this, I don't think I'm going to be able to consume that much Slaw.

two entire heads of cabbage? three pounds of cottage cheese, a thing that I don't even like to eat? no. that's a bad idea.

so I'm starting small here and making this 1/3 the size of the original:

2 packets of unflavored gelatin 1/4 cup cold water 1 cup mayo 1 tsp salt 1lb cottage cheese 4 cups shredded cabbage

a photo of my kitchen table, upon which reside one head of cabbage, one box of gelatin packets, one jar of mayo, and one tub of cottage cheese.

surely this will result in a reasonable amount of Man

...okay, I started chopping the cabbage thinking it would be easier, but I've given up and pulled out a grater. this is much better! and somehow more violent (affectionate)

a pic of a pink mixing bowl full of grated cabbage

the recipe says to soften the gelatin in cold water, and then stir over hot water until it's dissolved. I'm going to assume "stir over hot water" means a double boiler, so let's do that

photo of gelatin powder mixed with cold water in a bowl - some sort of semi-clear sludge, really.

photo of that same gelatin melted down, now liquid, a layer of white foam over the top.

hmmm, the gelatin is very foamy? it’s melted, but the bottom of the pot feels really....sticky

okay. after a couple minutes more and no change, I’m calling this good enough.

so one thing that others who have attempted this recipe have not taken into consideration is the cottage cheese. you see, the others used normal cottage cheese, but the recipe says to use "cottage cheese, cream style"

I’ll be real, I’m not 100% what that means, since we don’t have that here. but I can take an educated guess! so let’s blend the cottage cheese!

(with an immersion blender. I am not willing to wash an actual blender because of this)

photo of an immersion blender sticking out of a bowl of cottage cheese

pic of the cottage cheese, which is all smooth and creamy now! it looks closer to sour cream

mmm, yes. very smooth

...actually. why isn't all cottage cheese like this? the thing I hate about cottage cheese is the texture, so why isn't it all smooth and creamy like this?? I could eat this!!

a new discovery is made every day in this house.

okay, time to start mixing things together.

pic of a spoonful of mayo, ominously close to the camera. I am offering you a taste. you should refuse it.

ah, frosty. I opened a whole new thing of mayo for you! do you feel special?

(I'd make a "pre-dinner snack?" joke, but sometimes I think I'm the only one that remembers Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time)

pic of the gelatin mixture with mayo and cottage cheese added

oh...the mixture is...chunky now. that's not a good sign. hmm

okay, the mayo, cottage cheese, and salt have been added to the gelatin. but as this cools, the texture is getting...hmm. less than appealing.

lastly: the cabbage

a pic of a large pink mixing bowl (unrelated to the other one), which contains the completed slaw mixture. it's an off-white lumpy mess with green bits visible throughout.

it is. not appetizing.

oh. oh this is not very nice

next it says to pack the "salad" into a one pound container, and two six-cup bowls, but since I made this recipe so much smaller, I'm going to uhhhh. uh. find some bowls that seem like they'd be correct...snowman? proportions?

a metal bowl, lined with plastic wrap, filled with the slaw mix. this is entirely too much slaw.

ah. this bowl is too big.

hey, these'll work!

two orange bowls, lined with plastic wrap, filled with the slaw. the plastic wrap has been twisted to help the slaw stay in the bowls in a round shape.

don't worry about how messy the fridge is! I share this fridge with others, and get exactly half of a shelf to myself, so chaos is a common occurrence.

ah man, I remember that swiss cheese though. that was a good swiss cheese. I should get more sometime

now I just have to let them chill for a while, and continue another day.

(edit from current!me: ahhh oh my god I forgot this was pretty soon after we adopted Jackie! look at these cat pics that I took while I was food crime-ing!

Knuckles (a striped, brown-and-white kittycat) is trying so hard to be friends with Jackie, a smol white-and-orange kitten who is hiding under a half-open dishwasher door. she looks frightened about this.

a similar picture, but Jackie is looking at the floor instead of at Knuckles

Knuckles and Jackie standing on either side of a kitchen doorway, Knuckles looking neutral and Jackie looking mildly afraid

look at them having their little interactions! Knuckles was trying so hard to be friends with her! I love them)

hello! two days later and we are ready to assemble the slawman. and my sibling has started referring to him as "frosty: attorney at slaw", so that's fun.

the orange bowls have been rescued from the fridge. the slaw looks nice and round

I've done a thing where, as these set, I flipped them around in the bowl so that hopefully they'd be more round. we'll see if they actually stay like this.

pic of a cutting board with carrots and olives and stuff that I've been cutting into various Shapes to decorate the man with

I have also made some decorations for him out of peppers, olives, and carrots!

let's build our boy

a photo where one of the slaw balls (yes I am calling them that) (don't worry about it) is perched precariously on top of the other, held in place with a skewer.

oh he's so heavy. and wobbly

no no no he almost fell over!!

okay. he's fine. but more skewers were needed.

and...okay. he is complete.

behold!

it's the slaw man!! he's white in color, has eyes made out of black olive halves, a cherry tomato nose, and a slice of red pepper for his mouth. he's smoking a carrot pipe, holding a carrot broom, and has carrot arms.

he has a shirt collar of yellow pepper, buttons of green olive slices, and a sort of uhhh jester hat? idk. made out of orange and red pepper pieces.

gaze upon my beautiful man!

(he is not structurally sound! he wobbles unsteadily as I rotate him! there are already cracks forming in the gelatin around where his arms are! don't worry about it!)

now it's time to stab him

photo of the crime: me stabbing the back of the man, to remove a chunk of his horrifying cabbage-gelatin flesh.

and...to devour him

a photo of a plate containing some man slaw, from the slaw man. it's green and white and lumpy. it does not look good.

this tastes like...a bland coleslaw? and not even that. it's just sort of a salty, cottage cheese-y cabbage. the ingredients don't combine to become something greater, they simply...sit there. like this.

and the texture is...mmm. it's not a jello kind of texture, but it is a bit squashy in a way that's mildly strange.

it's very creamy once it softens in your mouth.

...I don't like this!

and look! taking just that one chunk from him was enough to destabilize him entirely :(

a photo of the man: he has fallen :( he lies supine on the plate, his torso split open and tearing apart. his smile is unchanged. he does not mourn his own demise.

a side view of the fallen hero. he died as he lived: tasting unpleasant and looking like a creature from a horror movie. but still, for just a moment...he was mine. and I loved him.

RIP frosty. now I just have to see if I can eat all of you before you go bad.

(note from current!me: I could not.

I ate maybe half of him over the course of many days, often adding other stuff to him to try to add some flavor: bacon, frozen peas, cheese, etc. but even with that, I just couldn't stomach him.

after a while I stuck what was left of him in the freezer, hoping that maybe I'd find the will to consume the rest of him some other day.

do you know what a frozen-and-then-thawed mixture of cabbage, cottage cheese, mayo, and gelatin looks and tastes like?

bad. the answer is: bad.

I threw him out pretty quickly after thawing him.

do not try this recipe at home)