Arrrgh! Mouldy book

Went to the library yesterday and wandered over to the corner where they sell books they have no more use for and found two cookbooks I had long wanted, plus a volume with both of Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently books. A quick check showed there were no pages missing, so I went to the desk and bought them. Last night I sat down after dinner to leaf through the cookbooks and discovered mould in one of them. Little spots of bluish-black mould the size of fingerprints were growing outwards from some of the seams in the book. Mould in regular books is a nasty, ugly thing, but mould in a cookbook could be dangerous if it got into the food being prepared. Ouch! And arrrrgh!

I really, really want to keep that book, but I don’t want to have it near my other books, knowing that if I ever have a dampness problem or a water or steam accident in my house, it could contaminate them. I don’t suppose applying a fungicide will do the paper any good, but at least I can minimise the risk of contaminating any food I may make following the recipes, by taking the book out on a windy day and brushing away the spores. I think I will then store it in a plastic bag with a sachet of silica for company. It won’t look pretty, but at least it will not be a threat to the rest of my cookbook collection.

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