Thinking about paper
The third book in this three book series (I can now see the printer behind the pile of books, though I can’t actually use it yet) has a “Special recycled paper section.” It says so on the front, blazoned like something exotic. Which it was, for a big press magazine-related cookbook, twenty plus years ago. Let enough time pass and almost everything was once exotic. Charles II was impressed by the common pineapple, after all.
The Simply Living Vegetarian Cookbook has a lovely glossy cover and well as its special recycled paper section.
The thing I’ve always wanted to know about early recycled paper is how well it aged. There was a rumour going round in the 1970s that recycled paper was bad because it browned much more over time than regular paper. I’ve been admiring those words “Special recycled paper section” for as long as my cookbook stack ahs existed and never realised that all I had to do was open it and I would have a part of the answer to that question. Only a part. There are differences in recycled paper just as there are differences in other paper. Something to do with acid levels, probably.
I am fated to disappointment, it seems. The truth of the matter is that Simply Living used glossy paper for the ‘ordinary’ section and matte for the ‘recycled.’ The matte paper is perfectly good quality, but comparing matte with glossy is a mug’s game – they’re too different.
The recycled section is a lot easier to use, in terms of cooking. It doesn’t glare at me or catch the light. It also doesn’t have any colour pictures. There’s a class difference in these pages: matte and useful or glossy and pretty. Do I want to cook with a book that has such an internal hierarchy?
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