#5 Chewing gum: The Fortunes of Taste by Michael Redclift- pg #141-172

Summary:

By 1942 and 1945, more than one million American service members had visited the United Kingdom. Troops spend a couple of weeks in England as their visited markets a stopping point between the United States and the battlefront of Flanders. Millions of British people met an American for the first time. British men often asked Americans for gum. When British kids asked for sweets and gum, they got it from organized parties for local children. During wartime, a “pink market” had developed in the United States as kids wanted gum and sold it for a dollar a piece, keeping it fresh overnight in water. Chewing gum started to represent the country in a good way. In the United States, it had been argued that chewing gum was removed from the domestic market because suppliers could not keep up with the requirements of chicle cooperatives traveled to the United States to discuss and defend the price of chicle. Mexican producers claimed that the price they received was far too low, and they wanted to be paid in gold coins rather than in dollars. The heavy costs of collecting chicle and the widespread destruction of the tropical forest damaged much of Yucatan’s chicle industry. Chewing gum became widely available in American society at a time when work itself was being reformulated. The difference was that gum spelled enjoyment. Workers who chewing gum often ate snack food. Globalization- in the case of gum local systems of production coexist with local brands of chewing gum. Chewing gum today isn’t the same as it was in 1941. The material was different and so was the taste. Now there are more flavors of gum coming out. Producers claim that organic industry can easily be traced since the market is so much smaller. The rise of gum is still rising today. 

Quote:

"Chewing gum, like smoking or eating and drinking, is a primary bodily activity... gum has acted as a substitue for what we do not have" (Redclift 157).

Reaction:

Students are always hungry in class and they wish they can eat food. Instead, they chew gum. This related to the quote, because it's a substitute for food. I was shocked about the history of chewing gum when I read this book. I didn't think there was a lot of history to it, especially wars. I didn't know where gum came from until now, which was from the latex of trees in the Yucatan Peninsula.