This evening our daughter took down the Christmas Tree, and I decided to eat a candy cane that was on it. And of course, it’s wrapped in that dreaded plastic “skin” that’s just about impossible to remove. I ended up just breaking it into smaller pieces and trying to peel away the plastic wrap in the process. Which sorta takes the joy out of eating a candy cane, if you ask me.
I thought to myself: “Why don’t they put them in easy-to-open rectangular bags? Or loose-fitting plastic wrap?” And then it dawned on me (duh): these candy canes are meant to be hung on a tree, and hence need a tight-fitting plastic wrap. Their secondary purpose is to be eaten (if at all).
I’m sure I can order good-quality candy canes online where you can just, well, lick & eat them. I’ll buy them next Christmas. I’ll still buy the cheap “plastic skin” candy canes for hanging on the tree, but will simply throw them away when we take it down.
Break it in the middle of the hook backwards( so you’re opening the hook). The edges will cut the plastic but still leave enough loose plastic to grab and peel.
I light the bottom corner of the cellophane with a cigarette lighter. After a few seconds, (change your finger positioning!) and a little black smoke the wrapping is like it never happened. Mmm-mmm.
I just tear the bottom of the wrapper (where it’s fused together) with a fingernail, and then pull it all right off. I’m not sure what the hard part is supposed to be.
I have the distinct impression that when I was a child they were hung on the tree not wrapped in anything, and that we then ate them anyway.
Ah, the 1950’s. Though I’m not exactly sure what anybody’s going to catch from a candy cane hanging on a tree, unless somebody’s just sneezed on it. Which of course is possible.
As recently as the 1980s restaurants had bowls of unwrapped mints by the cash register. That may have actually been worse; while you were supposed to use a spoon to take the mints it wouldn’t surprise me if some people put their possibly unwashed hands in the bowl.
That’s a point I hadn’t thought of. Although, considering that small children are very likely to touch Christmas trees and then put their hands in their mouths, I at least hope that whatever’s used on the trees has a required pre-harvest interval long enough that that’s not a danger.
Oh yeah, I remember those.
And, um, I think I put my hands in the bowl – I don’t actually remember spoons with them, and wonder whether that started being done shortly before the mints in that form disappeared? You were supposed to only touch the one you were taking, of course, and not just drag your fingers through the bowl; but it was easy to accidentally touch one right next to the one you were taking.
I don’t know whether rates of infection are actually lower now that everything’s supposed to be kept wrapped up and no glasses etc.shared. As late as the early 1990’s we were routinely passing water jugs around in the field. – do people still pass joints and pipes? There used to be a really communal nature to getting stoned.
You can find them in small cellophane bags but the only ones I have purchased have been real small canes.
The form fitting wrap is an artifact of the manufacturing process. The candy is extruded as a continuous rod and pushed through the wrapping station while it is straight. Then it is chopped into segments and finally bent around a form while it is already wrapped. It holds its shape when cooled. Very efficient. See this video at 3:40
I don’t remember whether I find candy-cane wrapping to be annoying or inconvenient, because the experience of removing the wrapper gets lost in the appreciation of the candy cane. Mmmmmmm nom nom nom nom peppermint.
I do also appreciate their handy hook shape for using as an ornament or tying into a package ribbon or whatever. On the whole, though I sympathize with the OP for his frustrating experiences, I’m probably on Team Leave Candycanes Alone.
While I’m not a big candy cane person, I will eat them. However, if you are going to use them as ornaments, I have a relative who just put them away with her other ornaments each year. If they broke, then she threw them away. Don’t think she had any wrapper breaks or bugs get into them.
