CHEWING THROUGH HISTORY
People have been chewing gum (and gumlike substances) since ancient times. The Greeks chewed mastiche, made from the resin of the mastic tree. The ancient Mayans first chewed chicle, the sap of the sapodilla tree, over 1,000 years ago.
American Indians chewed the sap from spruce trees, and European settlers picked up the habit from them, adding beeswax to the sap. By the mid-1800s, people were chewing gum made from flavored and sweetened paraffin wax.In 1870, amateur inventor Thomas Adams was discussing a business proposition with his houseguest, the infamous General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna—the man responsible for the massacre at the Alamo 34 years earlier. Now Santa Anna was living in exile on New York’s Staten Island and trying to raise money so he could build an army to march on Mexico City and seize power.
Santa Anna had a scheme to sell Mexican chicle to Americans, who he thought could use it as an additive to natural rubber to reduce its cost. At the time, natural rubber was extremely expensive, and if someone could figure out a way to reduce its cost, he figured, it could be worth millions. The general had brought a large quantity of chicle with him and wondered if Adams could do something with it.
MIXING IT UP
Adams spent more than a year fiddling with the substance, trying to make rain boots and toys—and failed every time. He was just about ready to throw out the entire batch when he remembered how much Santa Anna had enjoyed chewing it.
He decided to mix up a batch of chicle gum in his kitchen that evening and give it a try. Result: Gum made from chicle was smoother, softer, and far superior in taste to the paraffin…The post The Man Who Put the Chicle in Chiclets appeared first on FeedBox.