OCR Text |
Show I By Frances Ainsworth f& One of our very good friends, Jim Jordan, is head of the town's largest bakery, and the other day he showed the members of my club through his bakery. Wfi watched the entire process of bak- I ing, the slicing, and .the automatic sealing of loaves into waxed paper" wrappers, and it was really fascinating! fasci-nating! One of the ladies was particularly par-ticularly intrigued by the automatic automa-tic wrapping. Jim smiled ... he said nearly everyone enjoyed watching that operation but then asked us if we knew the interesting interest-ing story behind the wrapper. He began by telling us that the paper used to make waxed paper is made of choice slow - growing spruce trees, grown in Canada and the northern states. Because of the cold northern winters, he explained, the spruce trees mature slowly, f:iving added length and strength o their fiber, and consequently, provides better protection for bread. The trees are usually cut during winter and sent down the river to pulp mills in the spring.-At spring.-At the mill, the bark is removed and the wood whittled into small chips . . . then "cooked" with special spe-cial chemicals. We all laughed when Jim said the entire cooking process was like making applesauce! apple-sauce! After "cooking", the waste is drained away and the chemically treated pure wood pulp is fed into a huge paper making machine which is an entire city block long! The machine re-wets the pulp fibers, fib-ers, then mats them together in a sheet. After the paper dries, it is printed and fe'd on rollers through tanks of molten paraffin wax similar to the type we use to preserve pre-serve jams and jellies. Jim described the entire process ! so vividly that we could see every step and we were simply amazed. Think of the millions and millions of dollars that go into the making of waxed paper! Yet, we get the complete protection it affords in keeping our bread fresh and tasty for just a fraction of a cent a loaf |