Author: Anna Kusmer / Source: Atlas Obscura
“It started as a joke,” says Emily Wallace, “and then we were like, ‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea.’”
The idea was a pop-up event celebrating the art of sculpted foods, particularly gelatin foods in all their elaborate, multi-colored glory.
(Whether they be savory aspics or fruit-filled Jell-Os.) The name, chosen by Emily with her friends Kate Alia and Kate Medley, was “O Moldy Night,” a riff on the iconic Christmas carol “O Holy Night” referring to the many molds used to shape Jell-O and aspics. So one night in Durham, North Carolina, home cooks and professional chefs displayed their creative concoctions in a hotel lobby. Beyond Jell-O, most anything made with a mold was welcome.The three main organizers, Medley, Wallace, and Elia, work as artists and professionals in the local culinary scene and have an interest in blurring the line between art and food.
“Molded foods are so visually stunning and weird,” says Medley, a photographer and filmmaker. “Why not elevate them on a pedestal?”
Wallace and Medley both grew up surrounded by Southern home cooking and have fond memories of the molds of their youth: orange Jell-O salads, accompanied by cool-whip and mandarin oranges.
“It’s not Southern by nature, but it shows up pretty strong in the South,” says Wallace.
But “O Moldy Night” contained molds…
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