There are these Indonesian candy chews I enjoy, Ting Ting Jahe, that are really nothing more than ginger, sugar and starch. They’re chewy, very spicy and refreshing and are individually wrapped in a distinctively bright white paper wrapper with blue checkerboard edging and a disturbing illustration of a sprouting ginger root. Because they’re so gummy, they used to be wrapped in corn-starched waxed paper underneath the white paper wrapper to prevent the transfer of stickiness.
After I opened a bag purchased recently from an Asian food store near Astor Place and removed the outer paper wrapper from my first piece, I was surprised to see not the usual waxed paper but what appeared to be a tenaciously clingy variety of cellophane. I spent the better part of a block trying to pick it off, but it kept breaking off in brittle bits. I threw out this first candy with the aborted wrapper and it wasn’t until I was halfway through picking the cellophane off the second piece that it dawned on me that it wasn’t cellophane at all but an edible starch-based film. Genius! Although when I first put it in my mouth, my tongue and brain conspired to produce a reaction along the lines of “Ew! Cellophane! Spit it out, you nimrod!” Seconds later, the wrapper melted away.
