Sticky fingers with traditional taffy

Kartika Bagus C., Contributor, Ponorogo, East Java

Have you ever entertained romantic thoughts while gnawing on taffy?

Well, when you chew the traditional taffy from Ponorogo, a town in the southern part of East Java, you also taste the metaphoric qualities of love and marriage.

For the taffy is part of the requirements a Ponorogo man must fulfill when proposing to a woman. Thus the taffy, made of rice or glutinous rice, is a required element in a marriage proposal.

When a man brings along some rice taffy when he proposes to a woman, it means that he has won the woman's heart. The sticky rice taffy represents the bond that will exist between the two until death separates them.

Sweet and delicious, the traditional taffy's basic ingredients are rice and sticky rice mixed with palm sugar and young coconut milk. In some cases, it can also be made of potatoes, squash, bananas or melons.

Of course Ponorogo also boasts other unique foods, such as skewered chicken, pecel (salad made of blanched vegetables served with peanut sauce) and dawet gempol (a cold drink made from rice or arrowroot flour).

The Ponorogo taffy, however, is different from the taffy found in other areas because it has remained unchanged in shape and taste. The taffy from Garut, West Java, for example, is mixed with milk, cocoa and other modern materials.

In Ponorogo, the art of taffy making, which is usually a household industry, is handed down from one generation to the next.

One of the taffy makers in Ponorogo is Teguh Rahardjo, 56. He said that he inherited the business from his parents. With his wife, Sri Hariati, 49, he turned his taffy-making business into a semi-modern business in 1982.

Usually, Ponorogo taffy is square-shaped and comes wrapped in paper. But in the hands of Teguh and his wife, the taffy is attractively packaged so that it can serve as a souvenir.

"Generally, people come here to buy taffy to take it home with them. Even migrant Indonesian workers buy a lot for their mates in Malaysia, Brunei or Saudi Arabia," Sri Hariati told The Jakarta Post in her shop-house here.

Some of the ingredients for the taffy, such as palm sugar and young coconuts, are found in Ponorogo. Others are bought in neighboring cities, like the potatoes from Malang and the squash from Nganjuk.

Making Ponorogo taffy is simple; what you need above all else is patience and perseverance.

Some 15 people mix all the ingredients in a large wok with a diameter of 30 centimeters. A special machine is needed to mix the glutinous rice.

Hariati said that the longer it takes to mix the materials and the more coconut milk added to the mixture, the nicer the taste and the longer the taffy will remain refresh.

The main constraint facing the business, said Teguh, is the amount of time the taffy can remain fresh. If the taffy can remain good for a longer period, the business can grow even more, he said.

Presently, he added, he had the only shop selling taffy at the Seloaji bus terminal, run by one of his children.

But the business still can't meet the market demand. Hariati said they received a lot of orders from some shops outside of Ponorogo, but were unable to fill the orders because when packed their taffy must be consumed within a month.

Unpacked taffy will only remain fresh for a week, she added.

They attempted to add preservatives to the taffy, but it affected the taste, Hariati said.

"We received complaints from our customers so we stopped using the preservatives. We were afraid of losing our market," she said.

Despite the constraints, the couple continue to search for ways to develop their taffy-making business, including taking part in food exhibitions to help spread the word about their products.

They also are committed to ensuring their customers are completely satisfied with their taffy-chewing experience. Teguh jokingly added that if you buy taffy directly from his shop, he can guarantee that it will be as fresh as a daisy.