Baking parchment deserves an ode in its honour. I started using it much too late in life; when I think of the hours wasted in greasing and scouring bakeware over more than 40 years of cooking, I heave a sigh of regret. But it just wasn’t widely available in Canada until recently, although my 1935 English cookbook mentions it as The Thing for covering pudding basins and baking meringues on.

I used to use the broad side of a paper grocery bag, but then the supermarkets all went to plastic.