People have been
chewing rubbery stuff for thousands of years. The
ancient Greeks and
Mayans were fond of various kinds of
tree gum; so were the
Pilgrims, for that matter, who picked up the
habit from the
Native Americans. The oldest piece of chewing gum found by
archeologists is
2,000 years old (
Sweden). But it wasn't until
1928 that
bubble gum (as opposed to
chewing gum, which doesn't really make bubbles) was born. Invented by Walter Diemer, an accountant in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, it was an instant success.
Diemer can't really take all the credit for mass marketting this funforyourmouth adhesive, because chewing gum was on the scene for so many years prior. In
Texas, it's a pretty well-known fact that the leader of the
Mexican army that overran
the Alamo,
Jim Bowie,
Davy Crockett and the rest of its
glorious defenders, was the
infamous General Santa Anna. But what's not so well known is that afterwards, the good General had a mid-life career change (not entirely of his own choice), leaving the
military for the more
lucrative?
tree sap business.
A few years after his Alamo experiences, the former tactical specialist was in New York accompanied by a large
quantity of
sapodilla tree sap (otherwise known as
chicle). The sapodilla is a tree common in the jungles of
Mexico and
Central America where the
natives had been chewing on
wads of its sap for thousands of years. In North America, the natives were found of chewing the
resin of
spruce or
pine trees instead.
Attempting to be an
entrepeneur, Santa Anna came to
America in search of a
wiley or
ingenious Yankee who would be able to refine his chicle into a
cheap substitute for
rubber. The
man of the hour was
Thomas Adams, a
New Jersey inventor who experimented with chicle for some time before giving up in frustration and tossing the stuff into his
scrap pile.
All was not lost for Santa Anna or chewing gum fanatics for legend holds that Adams' own young son rescued some of this scrap rubber-like substance and popped it into his mouth. When his father discovered his son gnawing away on the stuff, a spark of inspiration occurred. Taking what he knew of chewing gum (such as that of tree resin, wax and even
whale blubber) Adams refined and marketed within the year a brand new craze-
Adams' Snapping and Stretching Gum. To improve the market he flavoured it first with
sarsaparilla and then with other flavours.
The
evolution of bubble gum and chewing gum has come a long way. The majority of chewing gum in our day is no longer from
mother nature's plant life but rather from sweetened food-grade plastics. In Mexico, bubble gum is the gum of choice and oddly enough one of the most popular flavours is hot
chili pepper, produced by
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