The Lutheran-Mormon Green Jell-O Smackdown!

I suppose it had to happen eventually.  I suppose that here, even in blog-world where people often have really profound thins to say, or teach, or display, things would eventually take a slide downhill.

I can hardly bring myself to tell you all, because you may think less of your favorite Gunfighter... but I fear that I must.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been a middle of the road to slightly right of center (the center isn't what it used to be, just remember that), and I had little use for the world of pop culture.  I couldn't have cared less about what was happening in the music business.  I didn't care about the East Coast-West Coast rap war.  I didn't take sides, because I had no dog in the fight.  Who really cared that some rappers had a "beef" with other rappers?  I was a go-it-alone sort of man who seldom got into a beef with anyone.

All that has changed.

I have become embroiled in an on-line beef with some chick in Indiana who has had the temerity to tell ME, a good Lutheran boy, that green Jell-O and it's attendant midwerstern recipes are somehow "property" of the Church of Latter Day Saints!

Well, you just knew that I wasn't going to lay down and take that, being a Modern Lutheran Warrior.

Moosh In Indy has called me out... and woe, I say, WOE unto her for that.

Look, we don't need to get nasty about this, but let's be clear on something, ever since that first of reformers, the rockin' German monk, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses to the church door, we Lutherans have been kicking butt and taking names.  This beef with that mormon-chick-with-a-tattoo-on-her-back doesn't know what she is getting herself into!

It's on, Moosh.

Some of the earliest permanent settlers in the Midwest were originally from Germany, Sweden, and Norway, and because they were from these countries (all of which had state churches which were LUTHERAN), they were already used to eating unusual food, like Lefsa and Lutefisk.  Going one step further, they were already used to sharing their foot at church gatherings... which led to the development of the "hot dish" (which you might think of as a casserole... but only if you ain't a Lutheran).

These hearty pioneers, used to cold climates (and you have to have cold to make Jell-O!), settled the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri, and were there long before any Brighams-come-lately in Utah.  As a matter of fact, their descendants still make up the geographic core of Lutheranism in The United States (stand up and salute.  NOW!)

So it should be clear to anyone that green Jell-o salad is a very midwestern thing... and since the mid-western states are the most Lutheran places in the country, that by dint of longevity, AND the number of counties that are predominantly Lutheran (250 v. the paltry 80 counties where the Latter Day Saints hold sway).

The math is irrefutable, my friends.  Green Jell-O in general, and green Jell-O salad in particular, was, is, and always will be Lutheran!  Mind you, I'd never eat the stuff either, but I am seriously down with my peeps, yo!

Look, if green Jell-O wasn't a Lutheran thing, there wouldn't be a book/DVD entitled:  If There were no Lutherans, would there still be Green Jell-O?

 

Now, my friend in Indiana thinks quite highly of the fact that Salt Lake City, Utah is something special because of the fact that the people there eat more Jell-O, than anywhere else in the world.  To her I say: phshaw!  That's only because SLC is the most toothless place in America (unless, of course, the Osmonds are in town!).

My learned opponent is also pleased to show us some sort of Jell-O superiority because of some puny, concoted Jell-O pin.  Well, all I can say about us Lutherans, is that WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' BADGES.

We have the numbers.

We have the cookbooks.

We even have Lutheran Jell-O jokes!

We even have a whole slew of Lutheran celebrities that would agree with me:  Green Jell-O is Lutheran.

Mind the boot-print on your backside... It isn't personal.

Anybody else want a piece of me? (or a piece of green Jell-O?)