[Sca-cooks] Paper twists of spice (Was spice storage)

[Volker Bach]

Am Freitag, 29. April 2005 22:19 schrieb Huette von Ahrens:
> Printing or decoration?  Someone could have painted the shell or carved it.
>  Perhaps it is a piece of stiff cloth or decorated leather?  I know that I
> am grasping at straws, but I am having a hard time with the concept that
> someone desecrated a book to wrap spices in paper.
>
> ::Shudder::
>
> When this painting was done in 1612 or so, printing was becoming more
> common, but would someone really have torn out a page of a book to wrap
> spices in it?  I can see the Victorians doing that. I have actually held in
> my hands a Victorian era law book that was falling apart.  Someone had cut
> up a vellum illuminated manuscript and pasted a strip of it onto the spine
> to cover up the stitching.  I wanted to cry.  But would a 17th Century
> spice merchant have done that?

It needn't have come out of a book. 1612 is well into the age of the cheap 
broadsheet, and those lose their usefulness after a few weeks as the news go 
stale. Paper was not as cheap as it is today, but it was cheap enough to 
stick on walls or use for newsprint with short shelf lifes. 

Giano