Actual thought I had in the shower!
Gelatin was originally and still often is derived from meat by-products, so wouldn’t it make more sense as a meat dish?
I looked it up, and it turns out that accounts of aspic (a savory gelatin dish) predate the earliest record of gelatin desserts by more than half a millennium!
Maybe the mid-20th-century meat Jell-O trend makes more sense than I thought
In Italy, I would arguably state that most users of gelatin are in savory dishes, mostly similar to the aspic main picture. Only exception I know is panna cotta that needs gelatin to set. Sweet Jell-O for me is a US symbol.
That’s cool to know!