Product Description
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.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 3 reviews)

Puts the "No Botany" in Ethnobotany by The K (Miami)

1 Stars
September 18, 2009
I thought about writing a long and detailed review of Chicle, but... well - how to put it best...? How exciting can a book on chewing gum really be? Yeah, that's right, not particularly exciting. I would suggest that if you really want to read this book, check it out from the library or borrow it from a friend. You may find yourself very disappointed with its contents. The best part about the book is the colorful cover, actually. The book was not a complete waste of money, however. It will make an excellent stabilizer for the bad leg of my office chair or a nice surface to mix paints on, and I might occasionally use it as a door stop. That's a lot of value for $12.21 . The low point in the book is definitely the 'contribution' of 'botanist' Gillian Schultz. The book went from mildly interesting to utterly boring and unprofessional really fast. I think Mathews would have done a much better job without the second author. Just my opinion.

A fine and lively history of chewing gum production in the Americas by Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)

5 Stars
July 18, 2009
CHICLE: THE CHEWING GUM OF THE AMERICAS, FROM THE ANCIENT MAYA TO WILLIAM WRIGLEY offers a fine and lively history of chewing gum production in the Americas. Any lending library strong in food history will find this blends culinary history with an assessment of the social and environmental impacts of chicle harvesting. It's well researched, making for a much more detailed account than one would anticipate from the inviting, folksy cover art.

Unusual, and Unusually Interesting by Harvey H. Guthrie (Fillmore, CA USA)

5 Stars
May 18, 2009
Its colorfully attractive cover caught my attention, and a thumb-threw reeled me in. Tip O'Neill said "All politics is local," and, in the end, all history and sociology are rooted in specific particulars. The gum I chew to freshen my mouth and to stay awake while driving the car turns out, under the investigative expertise of Jennifer Mathews, to be such a specific particular. It introduces me to the Central American rain forest tree which provides the chicle from which gum was made. It highlights the social uptightness of the ancient Aztecs, accounts for the wealth that enabled William Wrigley to own the Chicago Cubs and Catalina Island, gives rise to the rough and ready chicleros who harvested chicle. It is a concrete instance of the exploitation by the US of the people and resources of Central America that led to poverty and near extinction of the chicle producing trees, as well as to the basis of almost all present day chewing gum being petroleum derivatives rather than natural chicle. The book is well researched, clearly written, and a delightful learning experince

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