Bubble Gum

You know what old time favorite seems to be less and less present today?  It's bubble gum. I don't chew it much anymore, but it was big with both adults and kids when I was a boy. I remember another craze when I was a child, collecting baseball and football cards. Inside each card that sold for a penny each was a square slab of bubble gum. The cards were fun to trade and a source of info about players, but no one ever let the gum sit very long. We usually goggled it before we even looked at the card, which was sold with it.  Today the sports trading cards are still sold in the same format but they have no gum inside the package.  Perhaps this has dimmed the popularity of bubble gum with kids.

Bubble gum was invented in 1928 by an accountant who worked for a chewing gum factory. It seems he was playing around with the chewing gum one day instead of charting debits and credits and accidentally stumbled on the formula for bubble gum. The reason bubble gum is pink today is because the inventor colored it with what was available that day, the pink the factory used in it's chewing gums. Can you imagine a slab of bubble gum being any other color? I think it would taste different if it were not pink. Being a bubble gum purist I like the pink slabs of bubble gum far more than the many colored bubble gum balls that can be bought from vending machines.  The texture of slab bubble gum is the best one.

Anyway, 1928 to now, I am sure (anecdotal evidence only) that fewer people chew bubble gum today. I once read that the two countries with the highest chewing gum (not bubble gum) consumption are Iran and Saudi Arabia. Bubble gum seems to be more of an American habit than is chewing gum.  I notice in stores the endless racks of chewing gum for sale but have to look long to find any bubble gum.  Chewing gum comes in low calorie, sugar free, breath freshening scents, longer lasting flavors and multi flavors. Bubble gum is mostly that pink stuff...plain and simple.  I rarely chew gum and never choose chewing gum if I chew gum. It's bubble gum or nothing. My daughter used to like bubble gum so we kept some in the car and I, of course, sneaked my share of bubble gum from time to time. It tastes just as good now as when I was a kid.

One thing some food makers do now is to add a bubble gum flavor to their products. Bubble gum ice cream or snow cones are very popular flavors. But for me, bubble gum should only be chewed and not sneaked into other sweets. I think that today parents try to keep their kids from chewing bubble gum bu using their "healthy diet" routine on their defenseless children.  Instead of bubble gum they give junior one of those awful unsweetened chewing gums and swear at the kid, "Your teeth will rot out if you chew bubble gum." Gee, what's the fun of being a kid if you can't rot your teeth by chewing bubble gum.