My first thoughts were if it ant broke dont fix it, then dont take the lid off it is full of worms and leave well alone. Then what would I do? I came to two practical ways that are plausible. First and simplest apply Carnuba wax polish using many coats. The other would be to use a melamine sealer using a traditional French polishing rubber to apply a coat extremely thinly, hopefully eventually filling the pores. This method could be totally reversible if you uses a shellac based grain filler and polish using Alcohol to remove them if it does not look good enough. Though my first thoughts are I feel still the best.
Good luck what ever you decide to do
Ernie.
