GELÉE MARCHÉ

Ladies and jellyfans, welcome to the Gelée Marché, our wild world created to nourish and entertain you this holiday season. Whether you are visiting Paris for a festive feast or you’re a lucky resident, the market of dreams will help you fill your bags both spiritually and literally. Brought to you by Gelée, “the gelatin delight” and Semaine, the world’s most Tasteful media (if we may), this reimagined take on the classic Parisian Marché will indulge your inner child, as we remind you how to find joy in the everyday. In the heart of the Marais, we’ll welcome you for a moment of whimsy and wellness and help you find the perfect playful gifts. With Gelée and Semaine, you can discover a whole new way to amuse your bouche.

From mediaeval banquets to post-war picnics, and now to the playful elegance of Gelée, this timeless treat reminds us that food can be art, indulgence, and even a bit of frivolity. We’ve all borne witness to the return of kitsch dining, the renewal of old classics (hello Martha Stewart documentary), but the childhood favourite, the ironically unwavering jelly has a history that goes back much further than we’d think. Our story begins in the Middle Ages, when jellies and aspics were a prized part of European feasts. In an era before refrigeration, these dishes required a surprising level of culinary sophistication. Gelatin, a core ingredient, was extracted from animal bones—a laborious process that only the most affluent kitchens could afford. But for wealthy mediaeval hosts, a shimmering aspic was the ultimate showpiece, used to encase everything from savoury meats to vegetables. Not merely decorative, aspics served a practical purpose too: they kept meats fresh for longer, a handy trick for mediaeval banquets.

By the 18th century, gelatin-based dishes had shifted from feasts to fashionable tables across Europe. Aspics were popular among the French aristocracy, often encasing exotic ingredients in gelatin. Royal chefs delighted in creating "charlottes," elaborate desserts with fruity jellies. Meanwhile, savoury jellied dishes, such as Oeufs en Gelée, became a feature of classic French cuisine—a touchstone for cooks showing off their skill and creativity.
The Victorian era, however, is where jelly truly hit its stride. This was the era of opulence and intricate dining, and Victorian cooks embraced the mould as a canvas for culinary art. Gelatin was now commercially available, thanks to industrial advances, making it easier to create delicate, flavourful jellies and aspics. Cookbooks from this period are full of delightful illustrations showing jellies in elaborate shapes—pyramids, towers, and flowers. No Victorian banquet was complete without a shimmering, towering jelly centrepiece. There's no doubt that this level of grandeur is something we are striving for today, with the rise of food styling and the line becoming ever more blurred between art and food. Sweet and savoury alike, Victorian jelly dishes pushed the boundaries of both colour and content.

The real revolution came at the turn of the 20th century, when powdered gelatin was developed, making jelly accessible to households everywhere. In 1897, Pearl B. Wait, an enterprising cough syrup maker, created a flavoured gelatin dessert, branding it with a whimsical name: Jell-O. His wife May came up with the name, and little did they know it would become a cultural icon. Jell-O promised convenience and fun, instantly winning over American families with its bright colours and wiggly, jiggly appeal. A new culinary craze was born.

By the 1950s, Jell-O salads were practically a staple at American dinners. Gelatin moulds grew more ambitious, incorporating ingredients like vegetables andseafood (to the eternal bewilderment of later generations). Aspics and Jell-O salads became a symbol of domestic creativity, capturing post-war optimism in their inventive combinations.

We chatted to Zoe, founder of Gelée, who is championing this resurrection with her creative venture. Stretching the capacity and capability of gelatin and moulding it into an innovative space, combining flavour with colour, kink, and a healthy dose of wellness.

Although not immediately evident, jelly holds its own space in the health world with the more recent craze of collagen products. A bovine collagen and gelatin have virtually identical nutritional profiles, sharing multiple characteristics and benefits from skin regeneration to improved joint and bone health. Whilst these rewards are certainly beneficial, neither gelatin nor collagen are particularly sexy products: enter Gelée. The duality of childlike frivolity and a higher purpose is what Zoe set out to showcase with these products.

So what brings this New York brand springing across the pond? In true American in Paris style, a moveable feast was created with Gelée highlighting the fantasy, sensuality, and joy of not only eating but preparing food for someone else, and where better to do that than in Paris, the city with the highest of culinary standards (also a city with some strict traditions that are fun to break.) Nourishing yourself and others is one of the highest forms of intimacy, creating something that will not only be ingested but thoroughly enjoyed is an artform in and of itself.

The simplicity of the product - Gelée, is its whole charm. It harks back to childhood in a way that other foodstuffs could never do and now, more than ever, this return to a freer and more liberal time is something we are all in need of. A freedom from grown-up constraints and a moment to play, nourish, and indulge ourselves in art and beauty is the sort of emotional emancipation that we should all be leaning into.