The incredible edible wrapper

[Jonathan Whitney]

I was planning for a trip and wanted to take some granola or Lara bars along with me. of course, that meant the hassle of lots of trash and wrappers. I thought, hey, why not use rice paper? I gave it a go earlier tonight and the results came out well.

First, I bought a pack of rice paper from the Asian market. 1.29 for a pack of 30 sheets. You can cut it into four sections and wrap four Lara bars pretty well. If you cut it into fours, it's just short of completely wrapping a granola bar, but it still does the job:

The ends of the bar will be a little thick on the paper as it overlaps, but it doesn't have much taste to it overall. This allows you to wrap the bars, keep 5 or 10 of them in a ziploc and pull it out and eat without worrying about any trash.

Just leave them on a ziploc or some wax paper long enough to completely dry. The wrappers weigh about as much as a regular foil wrapper, so there is no real weight penalty and it's less trash, so you might even knock an ounce off if you eat a lot of bars.

I plan on using this method on a trip next week. If I run into any issues, I'll let you know. So far, it seems pretty foolproof.

[Mark Cashmere]

This seems like a novel idea. So, you soak the rice paper to make it pliable and then wrap the bars and let dry? Then, plan on just eating the whole wrapped bar as is? Just clarifying. Sounds good.

[Jonathan Whitney]

i should have described the process a bit. Take your cut piece, submerge it in water for a few seconds and begin wrapping it around the bar. It will go from brittle to really pliable to a sticky mess that you can not untangle. Perhaps wet a cut piece and just hold it for a bit, bend it around some, just to get comfortable with how it goes from stage to stage.

But yeah, once it's dry, you can toss all your bars in one big ziploc and grab and eat it wrapper and all.

[Javan Dempsey]

Yeah I've been contemplating how to make dehydrated spring/egg rolls lately.. Just not sure how I could reconstitute them..

Wonder if I could steam them long enough?

Sorry, minor thread hijack, but along the same lines(sorta) ;)

As to the OP: Cool. The rice paper is almost weightless. I bet you could even make packets to hold things like dehydrated rice, etc.

[Chris Lucas]

What about just "flouring" the bars with powdered sugar? A super thin layer would weigh almost nothing and pack a few more calories in to the food item?

[Tina Wann]

Do you get an air tight seal with the papers? If you are worried about trash and already packing them in a ziplock bag, why not just take the wrappers off and not worry about rewrapping? No trash, no hassle…

[Christopher Holly]

This made me hungry for Bò 7 món.

I too share concerns about freshness – this method is novel and very interesting to say the least, but may only be suited for short trips?

Mmmmm…. Bò 7 món!

EDIT: My concern is the addition of water via the rice paper wrapper to foods that should be kept dry, or at least in a sealed package if they are to last for more than a day or so.

If it works, this is great!!

[Travis Leanna]

Could you "glue" two rice papers together by running a wet finger around the edges and create a sealed envelope around the food?

Good idea, OP.

[Will Webster]

This got me to thinking…

I tore some apricot leather into wedges and wrapped them around pieces of some very good dark chocolate I happened to have lying around. A quart of apricots made one round dehydrator sheet of leather, which was enough to make 8 wraps using a bit over 2 ounces of chocolate. Total weight of the 6 wraps my wife and I didn't eat on the spot is 4.2 ounces. We're looking forward to enjoying the rest the trail.

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