This week, we made steak in a brown paper bag. Well, first we covered it in butter because let’s be honest, everything tastes better when you first slather butter on it! I mentioned briefly a couple of memories that the brown grocery bag holds for me. The most important of these is without a doubt, wrapping the text books with the bag. This is such a key aspect of my childhood that I am sharing a tutorial with you here. I mean, never mind that students don’t even use textbooks anymore nor do they have access to brown bags. These are neither here nor there, you need the tutorial!!
But I only touched briefly on a few of the wonderful uses of the brown grocery bag that was such a huge part of our childhood. Due to all its utilitarian features, you just knew it would be the kind of thing that would be around forever. Like newspapers! Not only did they always seem to make their way into a bathroom for reading, they were a must have when sitting in the Lazy-Boy with your feet propped up. And afterward ,you could use them for everything. Unfortunately, they are now even harder to find than the brown paper bag!
I believe that you can put your fruit in a brown grocery bag to help the fruit ripen. I remember an occasion or two where a bag sat on the counter for a few days with some fruit tucked inside. Not bananas though, those suckers ripen fast enough without any help and go from tasty to “it’s time to make banana bread” because they have gone past their prime and it’s that or throw them out. I swear the time frame involved in that whole process is about 11.75 hours, too!
I remember watching a Christmas episode of Little House on the Prairie and being surprised that they wrapped their gifts in brown paper and tied them with twine. I couldn’t get my little kid mind around that. I mean, no decorative wrap with Santa and Frosty? No peel and stick bows bought in bags of 30 where they are all smushed and misshapen except for maybe 2 and in colors that never actually match the paper that you have? It turns out they did not have those things in the late 1800s. But we had brown paper bags and could still do it up all Laura Ingalls Wilder style! (and idea that seemed way neater than it was. Paper bags are WAY thicker than wrapping paper and do not bend around soft gifts easily at ALL!)
Whether you are making luminaries, carrying groceries in or the trash out (always a worrisome task if this caused a soggy bottom….would you make it in one piece?) you could always count on the brown paper bag. There is something to be said for this mult-function item that made its way into so many corners of our lives. I have to be honest, all this talk about the brown paper bag, really makes me miss them! I might just shake things up the next time I have to run to the grocery store and see if they will pack my groceries up in paper….just for old times sake!