Vacuum packing is making a bit of a comeback in chilled foods, saving a lot of plastic in the process. The trouble is that the effect can look quite technical or even worse a bit weird, to those of us not familiar with another hot trend – cooking food ‘sous vide’ in a warm water bath.
Not that anyone would suggest doing that with a pizza, but here in Spain I spotted a delightfully innovative way to make the most of the spare plastic film – print it as a tablecloth! Turns scary sci-fi food into Mama’s special recipe, for the price of a one colour pattern. Not just any pattern of course, ‘Gingham’ (a word derived from the Malay for ‘stripe’) has become a universal symbol of homeliness.