Chewing Gum: Fortunes of Taste #61-100

Summary: Now Britain wanted to get a share of the Chicle manufacturing business so they came with a compromise to own a part of the forest since Mexico was 24 million dollars in debt. They started doing their own manufacturing, then a Mayan General, General May, got himself involved in the trade by providing protection for the trade and he got a share of the money in it. Then in the U.S the chicle production boosted but then dropped around the great depression. Then more and more cooperations grew in Mexico and after this and during the beginning of world war II the chicle production got another boost. the gum was used for more than just chewing but also for weapon protection and fixing things. 

Being a chiclero was also a hard job for Mexicans and it needed people to handle a machete and climb a tree and sell the chicle sap from the tree. It was also dangerous and people often died because they are deep in the forest and are prone to animal attacks, snake bites, falling from trees, and some others who travel to and from British Honduras often died on the way. Then after they had protection of workers because of the dangers and that started a time where people wrote books on the chicleros and their lives.

Quote:"The forest, like the people who inhabited it, had built defenses against invasion."

Reaction: This is a metaphor used by the Mayans and workers and they believed that the forest acts like regular humans to protect itself. For example how humans have their own defense mechanism, the forest has the same thing only that the forest is more through nature. For example the sap would be poinsonous, and spines that cut on contact.

Chewing Gum: The Fortunes of Taste #25-60

Summary: After Santa Anna and Thomas Adams met and made the Staten Island agreement to produce gum they started making it from the chicozapote tree and they sold chicle which was a type of latex to raise money. Santa Anna then got impatient so he disappeared and left it all to Thomas. Then Thomas saw a girl buy a pack of gum that was made of Paraffin wax. So he took the chicle he made and started selling it to stores and traveled with it to sell also. They also had many different ways of selling gum also; they used sex appeal since the gum goes into the mouth, and they used colors and designs on the wrapper which worked the best. Chewing gum came into society during the time of big migrations and also industrialization meaning that cities are also growing. This fed into every entrepreneurs plan to sell and promote gum since the city was filled with people. Now that gum is a big thing and many people are making it they had to sell it and the wrapper with the best name, tatse, and most importantly best design always was the most popular stick of gum. Then the Mexicans and the Mayans went to war with America again during the Caste war over borders. This time gum was widely used by both sides of the military to chew on during battle and also the latex from the gum were used in weapons(not the gum itself).

Quote: "If people did not chew their food properly, they did not produce saliva, and this watering of the mouth produced the true or earned appetite that helped to keep people healthy" (Redclift, 37)

Reaction: Even though this book is on chewing gum its interesting to see and find out that "chewing properly" is a way of staying healthy. This gives a lot of emphasis on chewing food correctly and chewing gum to help with this.

Chewing Gum: The Fortunes of Taste #1-24

Summary:Chewing gum in Mexico is a lifestyle for most Mexicans as it is their jobs to either make, sell gum, or find the ingredients used to make gum or as they call it chiclet. There would be people that would make a living off of selling gum in downtown Merida with reasonable prices also, they dont want to sell it for real cheap but they dont want to overprice it which is about 2-5 pesos(20-50 cents). Gum comes from a product named henequen and it is made by the agave cactus which is only found in Mexico so it became a big job for some people when gum production rose. The history of chewing gum started at a meeting of Santa Anna and Thomas Adams but there was many events before this that actually led to the event. First was Santa Anna's victory in Alamo Texas. Then Santa Anna was captured and while being stoned on Opium he agreed to a Texan independence and also for his troops to be retreated. Then Santa Anna moved to Staten Island, New York and this is where the history of chewing gum begins to unravel after he meets Thomas Adams.

Quote:"The development of the product that made chewing easy" (Redcliff 17)

Reaction: This quote is something that can be questioned in my eyes because chewing gum doesn't really make chewing easy but makes people want something to chew on. They are two different things because chewing is an everyday action and chewing gum just makes it more fun for people not easier at all.