Serious Eats
Cork Uncorked
In the last few years, with demand for environmentally friendly, natural materials on the rise, much attention has been paid in this regard to bamboo. Making its way into evermore applications—especially in the kitchen—bamboo has been used in cutting boards, countertops, serving ware, disposable tableware and flatware, and much more. But while it is a beautiful, sustainable, durable and versatile substance, we need not live by bamboo alone, particularly when there’s cork.
The primary source for cork is the bark of the cork oak, Quercus suber, which is mostly grown in the lands surrounding the western Mediterranean, where climatic conditions favor its growth. From the late spring and into the summer months, the bark is carefully harvested, usually by hand, without harm to the tree. Though it takes approximately 9 years for the tree to regenerate a cork layer thick enough for harvest, cork farmers take special care to stagger the harvest of their trees, ensuring a fairly consistent supply of the material from year to year (though weather conditions do govern the length of the harvest season, and therefore, the amount of cork harvested in a given season). Due to their intrinsic resistance to rot, disease and pests, the trees are typically organically grown with no need for chemical pesticides or fertilizers, and live healthily for as long as 250 years, during which time their bark may be harvested more than a dozen times.
Cork treatment, post-harvest, is also chemical-free, consisting of a period of outdoor drying, followed by boiling, and a final round of indoor controlled drying.
Though the best portions of cork are generally reserved for the manufacture of wine stoppers—which account for over half of the cork market—the remaining cork is generally ground or used as is in a variety of applications, from shoe soles to gaskets.
Cork can be particularly useful in the kitchen and at the table. Waxed or urethaned cork is a fine choice for kitchen flooring with their warm, natural appearance, sound damping properties, durability, slip resistance, and flexibility under foot. Thin self-adhesive cork pads applied to the underside of unglazed ceramics protect delicate table and tray surfaces from scratches and rings. Inexpensive cork bulletin board materials, which come in roles, strips, slabs and tiles at most hardware stores, can be easily cut and fit wherever you need them, to pin up bundles of herbs for drying, or recipes and notes for easy reference.
Since it's water and heat resistant, cork is also great for trivets and coasters. While there are a number of attractive items specifically designed for such use, in my home, we routinely use a 10-dollar set of dark cork bulletin board tiles for this purpose. Lined up like a table runner, they look beautiful, and I can transfer hot casseroles and pots directly to them without concern.
There are also bowls and baskets made of cork, and candle votives wrapped with thin sheets of cork, which would add a touch of texture and warmth to any table.
In recent years, with the shift away from traditional cork wine stoppers to new plastic stoppers and screw caps, there has been concern—especially in Portugal where cork stands as the top export—as to the future of the cork industry, the people who depend on it for their livelihood, and the delicate ecosystems that thrive beneath the boughs of the long-living trees. For such a long standing, inherently natural, sustainable, beautiful, versatile and useful material to die in a self-imposed pigeon hole, at precisely the time when such materials under the greatest demand, would be our loss as much as theirs.