Back in the '50s and '60s, plastic wrap was just coming into use, and the wrap of choice was waxed paper. When cooking pudding, waxed paper was placed directly on top of the pudding to keep a skin from forming on top. My peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunches for school were put into waxed paper sacks and folded up, stapled shut or rolled up.
In the last few years I have been painfully aware of the amount of plastic bags I use--whether for garbage or storage, and the plastic wrap that became a staple of my food storage plan worries me in how its touching my food might be contaminating it in some way. When I first considered becoming a vegan in January 2010, the video and books I consulted stressed re-thinking the kind of wraps used for food storage.
Waxed paper is becoming my new best friend in the kitchen. It does not leave me with slimy stuff in the bottom of the refrigerator. I have covered cut onions and tomatoes with it, by pressing the waxed paper against the cut side of the vegetable, and twisting the long excess paper around the rest of the vegetable. They stay fresher longer and do not get slimy or white, brown or smelly at all. I was wrapping my fresh herbs in paper towels and then putting that in plastic in the refrigerator, but still ended up with slime a few days later. Instead of plastic I now wrap the herbs in paper towel and wrap the whole thing in waxed paper. It seems to allow it to breathe but protects it from drying out or decaying too quickly.
I've begun also putting waxed paper on top of gooier foods like open yogurt containers or other similar products -- putting the clean waxed paper directly onto the surface of the contents and pulling the excess paper down the sides and putting a rubber band around the top to hold the paper onto the container. It feels retro, but it makes a world of difference in the flavor and texture of stored foods. In the freezer, I still use zip lock bags to store baked goods, but I wrap the baked items individually in waxed paper first to keep the plastic from touching the food.
It's interesting that "green" recycled parchment paper, waxed paper , and other similar packaging materials in the local grocery store are about twice the price of plastic wrap or non-green products. It shouldn't be that way. We should automatically take these steps to produce what we need, and only as much as we need instead of ruining our world and landscape to produce packaging. I'm glad to see that it is starting to at least appear in stores as an option.
I have not seen waxed paper bags in the stores in years, but I make bags from waxed paper by rolling the edges up and then taping them with masking tape in strategic areas to keep them closed.
Aside from storing food, waxed paper has a lot of artistic uses, but fellow Baby-Boomers might remember the best use of waxed paper...making a slide really slippery.
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