In the United States, the Chinese take-out food container is an ever-present domestic object. I read that take-out Chinese food is a bigger business in the USA than take out purchases in all of the trash-food chains combined (Wendy’s, Burger King, etc.) -which is excellent news for the public health. But beyond nutritional considerations, I learned two important things about the container: first, it is not used at all in China, where take-out food is packed in less sophisticated and more environmentally harmful containers; and second, this cleverly-designed box was first used as an oyster pail, a mini portable refrigerated chamber to carry oysters, preserved in ice slush, from the port to the house. That is the reason for its doubly leak proof design based on the use of waxed paper, and the way the paper pattern is folded in order to avoid leakage from the bottom corners of the box, the points with the highest propensity to leak. How this box became a take-out staple is beyond me, but I admire the object itself as a remarkable low-tech everyday thing, simple, versatile, functional and recyclable. One of its recent limitations, the wire handle that kept the box together, has been removed so that it can now go directly into the microwave as soon as the hungry eater gets home. Special attention deserves the top self-closing tab, a simple mechanism that allows for extra steam to escape out without the food getting cold too quickly.
