Um... yeah. I was dying for cheese and went just a little nutty. I discovered that Perenzin San Pietro is coated with natural beeswax instead of paraffin (a petroleum product) and that The Pasta Shop near my house carries it. Of course, The Pasta Shop cuts it up into smaller pieces and seals them in plastic wrap. And if I were to ask to have some cut separately for me and put into my container, they would still have to cut and wrap the rest of the wheel in plastic.
So I ordered and bought the whole thing plastic-free.
What I didn't realize was that Perenzin San Pietro is a hard cheese. Very hard. Like parmesan. It's hard to cut. It must be grated. A little goes a very long way.
So, how does one keep a 12-pound block of cheese fresh once cut? With olive oil!
Before placing the order, I found these fantastic instructions for keeping cheese fresh without plastic wrap:
1) Rub the cut face of the cheese with olive, canola, or other vegetable oil.
2) Store cheese in the refrigerator. (The article suggests bamboo sushi mats. Since this cheese is covered with wax, I just have it wrapped in a tea towel directly on the refrigerator shelf.)
Beth Terry writes about finding alternatives to plastic and tracks her own plastic consumption and plastic waste at www.FakePlasticFish.com. Why Fake Plastic Fish? "Because if we don't solve our plastic problem, they could be the only kind of fish we have left." Please stop by and leave a comment!
Evelyne T. says:
Excellent tip.
It was around 1995 that I first tried to do without plastic containers for food and encountered huge difficulties which I still have not resolved. For instance, I have glass and ceramic jars and jugs for storing liquids, particularly milk, but, short of buying a cow and milking it - or a goat - you just can't get milk in non-plastic containers. I am glad, though, that you can now find eggs in cardboard boxes. It is not easy to find ceramic or glass boxes for storing little bits of food, either (except for old glass jam or jelly jars), and, of course, there's no alternative as far as I know, for storing things in the freezer... So we still have a little way to go.
Many thanks for that article, though.
Beth Terry says:
I use those old jam and jelly jars to store lots of small leftovers.
In our area, we have a dairy that sells milk in returnable glass containers. Straus Family Creamery. However, the bottles still come with a plastic cap.
Another way I store leftovers when I run out of glass containers is to put them in bowls and set a saucer on top for a lid.
IN our home, we don't store a lot of food in the refrigerator. All of our food is fresh and lasts about a week until the next time we visit the farmers market.
Oh, and by the way, we get our eggs at the farmers market too and even though they come in a cardboard carton, I still return that carton to the farmer each week to be reused.
Thanks for reading. Here is another idea for storing leftovers in glass:
http://fakeplasticfish.com/2009/02/guilt-gratitude-glass/
beth
Evelyne T. says:
Hi beth,
yes, I do all those things, and I just started using milk in a glass container (with plastic lid) and it feels great lifting it out of the fridge - strangely satisfying.
Good idea to return the cardboard box to the farmer. I don't know our farmer, I get ours from the supermarket, but I can compost them.
I do also return those wire hangers to the dry cleaners (who are supposed to only use bio-friendly chemicals etc.) though Ido most of my own laundry.
Thanks. I love this.
Evelyne