The Grass Jelly Experience

Let me tell you a little story about the first time I saw grass jelly. I was in Toronto at the time, at a supermarket down in Chinatown. There were many canned drinks on the way out, so my roommate and I decided we’d both buy a drink. Some of the cans didn’t even have any English on them, so I might as well have closed my eyes and picked randomly. This is when I saw the grass jelly; at the time, I didn’t really know what it was. It had a picture of what looked like some sort of gelatin or something in a glass with grass next to it. Long story short, I chickened out and bought some canned bubble tea with the tapioca pearls right inside (which was surprisingly good). But that can of gelatin and grass left a lasting impression in my mind.

It wasn’t until a few months later when I was confronted with the grass jelly once again, now learning that it was not, in fact, gelatin. This time it was in the foreign foods aisle of the friendly neighbourhood Superstore. One of my coworkers took to buying coconut juice of some sort (also quite good, as long as it’s cold) from time to time. While mingling with the foreign foods or drinks, rather, he noticed some sort of jelly made of grass. From this point on, he joked about buying it and drinking it all the time, while never actually making good on his claims. But, it was that fateful day, on which he told me he’d buy some if I drank it, when I finally got to sample the grass jelly.

And it was good. It’s the truth; I enjoyed the canned beverage. It reminded me of some sort of homemade cola. Well, homemade cola with chunks floating around in it; but I still enjoyed it.

But that’s not the end of my story. A few weeks ago, I was walking through that foreign foods aisle reminiscing of the good times or time, rather, I’ve had with grass jelly. So, I set out to purchase the fine product. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the same beverage I tried before, with the grass jelly chopped up into manageable chunks in a liquid, sweetened, and all packaged in a pop can. The only grass jelly I found was in just a regular can. Not one with a tab for easy access, no; this one would require a can opener. And I read the ingredients. It appeared to just contain grass jelly, unsweetened. But that’s okay. I’m experienced in the ways of grass jelly now. I’m a man. I can take it. Besides, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So I bought the can of grass jelly and brought my purchase home. I opened up the can and some dark liquid was immediately oozing out. This made me think I was dealing with a liquid here, but no. I dumped the contents out into a bowl; it was a small amount of liquid with a large can-shaped hunk of jelly. Honestly, at this point I really had no idea what to do with my jelly. So, I resolved to chop out a piece of it and eat it. Upon doing so, I found that it really didn’t carry much taste with it and the taste that it did have was one I disliked. Trying another piece confirmed this fact.

At this point, I needed to figure out what I could do with my large remainder of can-shaped grass jelly. Flushing it down the toilet was one option, but I set out to see if I could emulate the wonderful beverage I tried before I did anything hasty. The internet came to my rescue, as it tends to do from time to time; I looked up drinks I could make with grass jelly.

The recipe I found was very simple, and so I felt it would be a perfect one to try with a substance that I found foreign, such as this. I just had to chop up the jelly into small cubes, and then add one cup of sugar and three cups of water. And it was a simple enough recipe, although I did find that I had a bit of trouble cutting up the jelly. But I made it and I tried it and, man, was it sweet. So I took it upon myself to water it down, but it was still fairly sweet and I started tasting that flavour that I seemed to not enjoy anymore. I concluded that I wasn’t going to salvage this can of jelly. So, after submitting Rusty to a taste-test, I sent the remainder to a burial at sea.