something wrapped - Sue

In the 1930s breakfast was a formal affair. Even the dining room was formal with dark oak wooden furniture and heavy velvet drapes. Along the sideboard, silver lidded dishes hid the mandatory kippers and eggs. But it was the table that was so fascinating.

A white damask tablecloth covered the polished top. White linen serviettes neatly rolled into silver serviette rings lay perfectly alongside the heavy silver cutlery. In the centre there were the condiments, sugars and spreads. The sugar was neatly arranged in a little glass bowl. Cubes of white crystal balanced on top of each other occasionally slipping onto their sides. A pair of silver tongs, like a mini set of BBQ tongs lay across the top. The salt was in a tiny blue glass dish, slightly oval. It was loose and a tiny salt spoon with the base about the size of my little fingernail sat inside. The idea was to take a small amount onto the spoon and gently tap the spoon so the salt, hopefully fell evenly onto the food. The pepper was similar in a little matching dish. The butter was almost unrecognizable hidden under a fancy and intricately decorated china lid, with matching base. A little handle or loop was there to lift the lid. A big fancy teapot, always china and always with a funny woolly cover sat off to one side next to a jug of fresh thick creamy milk and a silver tea strainer with a matching dish. Sometimes someone would forget to use the strainer and big lumps of tea leaf floated on top of the tea.

Now it’s 2009. Breakfast is eaten on the run. Out of the fridge comes three cartons of milk, full cream possibly organic, lite and yuck, that grey coloured look of skimmed. The butter is cut into little thin rectangles wrapped in gold foil. Each pat is an individual serving of low fat butter and is usually an insipid shade of yellow. The pepper and salt, bought in bulk, are wrapped into small paper squares, the only difference between the two being the words “salt” or “pepper”. Even the contents look much the same.

Now the tea and the coffee are another story.

Tea bags, little see-through bags, can contain a myriad of flavours. Ranging from “real”, hopefully off the tea bush, to herbal infusions like peppermint or lemongrass. Then there’s Roibus meaning red bush, a strong tea look-alike from Africa but no caffeine. Yes believe it or not you can get decaffeinated “real tea”.

Coffee is almost as confusing. There’s caffeinated and “decaf”. There’s “real” as in ground beans which can be made as a filter coffee or using an Italian espresso machine in which case the coffee is wrapped into a little capsule, pre-packed for one. And there’s coffee bags, a larger size tea bag which packs just the right amount of ground beans into a little bag.

Today’s pre-packed hygienically wrapped food may be convenient but it sure generates a lot of waste. Just think of all the excess food and all that dreadful non biodegradable wrapping.