The Chewing Gum

In this episode of “Speak if it’s Greek” we want to take a deeper look on the history of something that everybody uses. People take one after an especially garlic spiced dish for preventing an unpleasant odor. Students champ it in their lessons – to the great delight of their teachers. Children compete in doing the biggest bubble. You can find it under bus seats, park benches, bar chairs and tables of fast food-restaurants and it’s available in all shops.
Well, it’s quit obvious what we are talking about, isn’t it? The everywhere popular chewing gum!

The chewing gum as we know it today was invented by the US-Americans in the late 1960s. Its main component is chicle – the white, milky juice of the so called sapodilla tree which is naturally growing in the tropical rain forest of Central America.

Nevertheless, the first forerunner is much older.
It seems unbelievable, but already more then 20 centuries ago, our ancestors were aware of the variety of practical using methods of this kind of gum. Certainly, at this time people did not put a coin in the next vending machine for taking a package of bubble gum and obviously, they did not have a big choice between many different tastes, either – the chewing gum itself was in fact a natural product.

Over the last past thousands of years, humans chewed on many diverse materials for refreshing their breath, balancing a bad flavor or even for brushing teeth. Mixtures out of certain leaves, sweet grasses, cereals, waxes and various tree resins were formed - thereby pretty much everything that made a glue-like consistence was tried out by the people all over the world.

But who were the first that had the brilliant idea of using a natural rubbery substance for cleaning the oral cavity? American natives, an old African trunk, a Persian traveler or was it in the end once again an invention of Ancient Greeks?

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