The Sweet Dish You Should Never Bring To Dinner Parties, According To Ina Garten

While the basic rules of being a good dinner guest state that you shouldn't show up empty-handed, Ina Garten is begging you to leave your Jell-O salad at home. In a discussion with Willie Geist on the TODAY show, Garten spoke candidly on the topic of dinner party host gifts that are actually a terrible idea, like "something that the host feels like they should serve. I mean, starting with, like, Jell-O salad," she said. "What are you going to do with that?"

While it's safe to assume that brightly-colored, multi-layered Jell-O confections are among the foods you will never find in Ina Garten's kitchen, we think that her statement about refraining from bringing them to dinner was probably not meant to single out your Great Aunt Mary's midcentury pride and joy. In the same interview, Garten said that she would never bring fresh-cut flowers without a vase to a host, indicating that the true issue is one of consideration. You don't want your dinner party host to have to stop what they are doing to find a vessel for a bouquet, and you don't want them to have to awkwardly make a real albatross of an unexpected dessert fit in with the pre-planned bill of fare. 

A better plan is to specifically ask your host well in advance what you can bring to make their life easier. Save the Jell-O boxes for shots, and prepare to be amazed at how many boxes you need for a big crowd!

The Venn diagram of folks who give the side-eye to Jello-O concoctions is probably a perfect overlap with those who are appalled by the mayo in southern fruit salad. These slightly-gimmicky "salads," which may or may not contain any actual fresh fruit or veg, can be reasonable, such as the kind made with fresh strawberries and Cool Whip, or they can be true Eldritch horrors involving cocktail shrimp, boiled eggs, and/or walnuts — sometimes all in the same mold. To a lot of people, the phrase "Jell-O salad" probably conjures a distasteful image of the latter category. Even inoffensive, objectively tasty Jell-O creations, however, carry an inescapable funk of weirdness. Maybe it's all the jiggling. Maybe some folks can't appreciate vintage eats. Who knows?

If you have a Jell-O salad that you absolutely adore, we suggest going big and planning your own dinner party with offerings that are equally kitsch and 20th-century retro: Cheese fondue, quiche Lorraine, bacon-wrapped Spam, and pineapple upside-down cake. Have everyone wear their finest polyester duds, and disregard everything that Ina Garten has to say!