By TED STABILE
Staff Writer
There are few concepts that can match the complexity and the enriched history of “gum.” For as long as we can, or rather care to remember, chewing gum, bubble gum, gumballs and even the enticing sugar-free gum has reigned supreme as America’s favorite edible polymer. The origins of our waxy animal-fat infused “friend” (If the Big Pharma equivalent of gum will grant me the privilege to refer to it as such) trace back to the times of Ancient Greece.
Now of course there was no “Big Red” or “Dentyne Ice” at the time to fulfill the flavor void in the hearts of the many, but they initially were content with merely squeezing the sap out of mastic trees, and hardening it into a simplistic chewable resin known as “Mastiche.” The Mayans later adapted this method to into their own completely original formula of spruce tree sap squeezing, except the end product was a compact, more flavorful substance referred to as “chicle.” However, like candles to streetlamps, and the horse to the hybrid, innovation was inevitable.
The later Native North Americans adopted the Mayan method, but it wouldn’t remain their delectable secret for long. The first New England settlers were introduced to the concoction, and were instantly hooked on the tantalizing concept.
Thus began the domino effect of irrevocable innovation that has made the gum industry into the monopolistic sweet-treat superpower we know and love today. In 1848, the first instance of commercialized gum made its debut under the alias “State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum,” sold and produced by the Curtis family.
While extremely basic and similar to the Native American formula, the economic potential of gum soon became the driving force behind several creative redesigns to it as now different gum base substitutes, such as plants, beeswax, and in some cases charcoal, were quickly attempting to replace the resin-based schematic.
There were even experiments with gum relating to dental hygiene; however, very few saw reasonable notoriety at the time, let alone success, so it goes with that seductress we know as capitalism.
In the early 1860s, after being introduced to a more refined chicle resource by Mexican president Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón, Thomas Adams initially patented and sold it as a substitute for rubber, which failed horribly. Adams soon modified his design by adding artificial colors and flavors, his signature being licorice, and by the late 1860s sold it as regular “chewing gum,” where it reversely became a huge success.
To quell the rising demand for the now-chewable celebrity, Adams invented and patented a machine that efficiently manufactured chewing gum, and dubbed his brand the creative title “Adams New York Chewing Gum,” and later renamed it to “Black Jack,” which literally promised “that good old licorice flavor.”
Several years later, although different brands of gum were in circulation at this point, much like re-watching a classic film to the point it becomes stale, the people grew tired of a single sugar base in their ephermal gum sticks, and yearned for a different, more complex variety. Thus lead to the creation of “synthetic” gums, which replaced the now trite chicle base with new, innovative bases, such as styrene-butadiene and several other rubbers, copolymers and waxes, but chicle itself would stubbornly persevere as a semi-predominate sugar-base figurehead, hanging on the coattails of its successors even to the present day.
Decades later, in 1928, Walter Diemer mustered the audacity to challenge the chewable candy regime, dominated solely by the smothering artificial “chewing gum.” Diemrr syndicated a creation that shook the very foundation of the now gum-centric world: the illustrious, game-changing “bubble gum.”
Several others before Mr. Diemer thrived to achieve what he envisioned, but were met with both crippling limitations and fruitless trials and errors. Now that Diemer had brought his vision to life, bubble gum began its own rise to tender, chewable fame, granting all gum-chewers an experience they’d never believe could come to fruition: taking wads of chewed polymers, and blowing them into complete glorious, albeit ephemeral, bubbles.
The first distinguished bubble gum brand came from the very company Diemer was currently employed, Fleer Chewing Gum, which transfigured into the proud manufacturer of Dubble Bubble. (The original recipe was already in circulation under the label “Blibber Blubber,” but was fortunately perfected and renamed by Diemer himself.)
With the introduction of bubble gum and chewing gum to the masses, the horizon of potential gum innovation broadened to near-limitless, giving several companies and key creators the divine opportunity to begin the construction of the modern day gum brands, both bubbly and chewy, sugar infused and sugar free, enjoyed by the vast gums and teeth alike of people across the globe. Yet there reigned a sole question on the minds of several gum enthusiasts nationwide:
“What’s the difference?”
Anyone who still believes that the two were the same should kneel and praise God for living in a world where ignorance of that scale doesn’t warrant a firing squad. The distinctions between chewing gum and bubble gum are undeniably many.
The first noticeable difference was that bubble gum reigned supreme in the bubble blowing department, and for obvious reasons. Chewing gum, however, was noted by youths and elderly of America as retaining its taste longer than its new ”bubbly” competitor. While the intended purpose of both parties remained largely the same, the individual components of the sugar bases in each were quite contrasting.
Chewing gum retained its primary bases of endearing chicle, copolymers and waxes, while bubblegum took a different approach by having its bases chiefly comprised of ethyl methylphenylgycidate while also relying on an intense assortment of artificial flavoring to distinguish each brand as its own.
On a side note, there is a special brand of gumball that is very precious and brave known as “sour filled” gumballs. I’m not referencing the slap-dash Crybaby gum that only rolls its surface in sour powder like a chinchilla in sand. This type of gumball is hollow at its core, but in place of a chewy heart it fills itself up with sour particles like a powder keg.
This brand of gum is the bona-fide definition of audacious, but like most stars there are the weak and common that would drag it down. As a young boy I fondly remember this brand of gum neatly packaged with its inferior Crybaby brothers at stores everywhere, even at pharmacies. Now it seems, however, the brand has been excommunicated and unjustly taken off shelves. Perhaps it was for health concerns, but I find that to be another example of the sensitive few (probably their sensitive tongues in this instance) ruining a good thing for many.
To pour sour powder into the wound, niche candy companies and scalpers have profited off this gumball genocide by hiking prices of sour-filled gumballs to new heights online, whereas the Crybaby prices have been steady, if not content in its own stagnation. The full, ongoing, Shakespearian tragedy of sour powder gumball is a story for another day
Our final noteworthy harbinger of chewable delicacy combined both “chew” and “bubble” in his brew, and with his heavy product production and practically ubiquitous, Orwellian-esque advertizing, he personally catapulted the already impressive popularity of the candy (if it could even be labeled such- compared to the other riffraff and mockeries of the day passed off as “candies,” gum was clearly a league of its own at this point) into the treasured national pastime status it relishes in today; present in every home, every store, and every heart.
I’m of course referring to the great, late William Wrigley Junior, the hero gum needed, but didn’t deserve. Wrigley began his legacy as a gum distributor with the old-but-gold “Wrigley Spearmint Gum” in the early 20th century. Before his time and even after, other manufacturers and competitors would create their own original gums and gum flavors, such as gumballs, gumcubes, and even meshed goods that had the moxie to combine gum with other “treats,” such as lollipops and jawbreakers.
However, Wrigley’s company, appropriately referred to as Wrigley’s, would singlehandedly create several of the world’s famous brands of gum, ranging from the tanginess of “Juicy Fruit,” the unrelenting chill of the amentioned “Dentyne Ice,” its contrasting “Big Red,” the several types of “Extra” gum brands, and almost every modern day chewable bubbly cohort thereafter.
Thus encapsulates the current tale of the evolution of both a world-renowned succulent adhesive, and an icon. An icon that dares to state: “No matter how sticky life gets, just keep on chewing.”
