Reuse and Recycle

Do you remember saving all of the plastic sacks that your bread came in? Many of my parents’ generation, as well as mine always recycled those sacks. Waste not, want not. That expression must have come from depression days. Anyway your plastic sack was not thrown away when empty, but washed, dried and put away for reuse. I remember these sacks being rolled on an empty wax paper tube for storage. I must admit I still have some in my cupboard.

If you were not a crust eater, this part of the bread was put in the oven or someplace to dry, saving for dressing bread. So the next time you make bread dressing, remember the days when dressing did not come prepared in a box. You actually had to break these bread pieces up into bite-size pieces and proceed from there.

I am sure that I was not the only one who was sure the only reason our parents had kids was so they could do those menial tasks, along with having to do dishes. If you were inventive, you could always put the sacks down on the floor and step on them, breaking the dried bread into pieces the easy way. Of course, you were wise to make sure Mom was out of sight before trying this more than once. Some habits are hard to break. It is still hard to throw some things like bread sacks, unsoiled tinfoil, egg cartons, (you can add to the list) into the trash. Of course we didn’t know about recycling then, it was just a mandatory thing your parents made you do.