Wrap album: Paper or plastic?

Moving from Tamil Nadu to Texas has meant there are some things I just can't have in my kitchen.

- Swetha Sivakumar

One of them is the banana leaf.

Rather than go into its magical properties (which I can perhaps steel myself to do another time), I'd like to explore the food liners I now use, and how I've learnt to pick the right one for each task.

Butter paper, wax paper, cellophane and aluminium foil are all descended from the original food liner in the West: leather.

Here at home we had broad, waxy leaves, such as banana and pandan, to turn to.

In colder regions, large, waxy leaves are rare, so people turned to animal hide instead. But this was expensive, and did not pair well with food flavours. So, in the industrial age, scientists began to use chemistry to create more effective alternatives.