Chicle
Subtitle: the chewing gum of the Americas, from the ancient Maya to William Wrigley
By: Jennifer P. Mathews ; with Gillian P. Schultz.
Contributors: Schultz, Gillian P.
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Tucson
Language: eng
Number of pages: 142
ISBN-13: 9780816526246; 9780816528219
Subjects: Sapodilla; Chewing gum -- Central America -- History; Chewing gum -- Mexico -- History; Chewing gum -- United States -- History; Chewing gum -- Social aspects -- America -- History; Chewing gum industry -- America -- History; Chicle -- Industrial applications -- History
Description: From the Publisher: Although Juicy Fruit® gum was introduced to North Americans in 1893, Native Americans in Mesoamerica were chewing gum thousands of years earlier. And although in the last decade "biographies" have been devoted to salt, spices, chocolate, coffee, and other staples of modern life, until now there has never been a full history of chewing gum. Chicle is a history in four acts, all of them focused on the sticky white substance that seeps from the sapodilla tree when its bark is cut. First, Jennifer Mathews recounts the story of chicle and its earliest-known adherents, the Maya and Aztecs. Second, with the assistance of botanist Gillian Schultz, Mathews examines the sapodilla tree itself, an extraordinarily hardy plant that is native only to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. Third, Mathews presents the fascinating story of the chicle and chewing gum industry over the last hundred plus years, a tale (like so many twentieth-century tales) of greed, growth, and collapse. In closing, Mathews considers the plight of the chicleros, the "extractors" who often work by themselves tapping trees deep in the forests, and how they have emerged as icons of local pop culture-portrayed as fearless, hard-drinking brawlers, people to be respected as well as feared. Before Dentyne® and Chiclets®, before bubble gum comic strips and the Doublemint® twins, there was gum, oozing from jungle trees like melting candle wax under the slash of a machete. Chicle tells us everything that happened next. It is a spellbinding story.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The birth of the chewing gum tree; title: The botany of the sapodilla tree; title: The history of the chewing gum industry in the Americas; title: The chicleros.