#30 The first bite of a piece of gum

Neil Pasricha

It’s always the sweetest.

1. Chicklet style. It’s time to crush that hard outer white shell into a million little pieces. You can do the first bite with your two front teeth (aka The Bugs Bunny) or you can get your back molars in the game from the beginning. Either way, the first bite is your chance to get those superminty shards scraping around your inner cheeks before they quickly dissolve and thousand remaining chews all become the same.

2.Bubble gum cube style. Have you ever had a dentist put that goop on your teeth to make a special imprint? That’s exactly what the Hubba Bubba first bite is like. You can pull it out afterwards and check out your cavities. In a way, you’re like a forest ranger picking up fox tracks in the mud.

3. Juicy Fruit Stick Style. When you have one of these long, flat, and thin pieces of gum you should always curl it onto your tongue like in the commercials. If you did it right the gum sort of swirls together like a snake and you can push it to either side of your mouth for the big bite.

4. Bazooka Joe Style. Those small tiny rectangular pieces of gum are the worst. They are hard as rocks and that first bite might break your teeth. Ideally you get someone else to bite it for you and then take over after that.

Listen up, people: We’ve been chewing gum together for over 100,000 years. So today we stop for a moment to nod back at all our cave-grandparents freshening their breath in The Stone Age and smile at the pure and simple joy that comes from that very first bite.

Chomp it loud and chew it proud.

AWESOME!

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Photos from: here, here, and here

32 thoughts to “#30 The first bite of a piece of gum”

  1. YES ^ ^ ^ ^ And I love the burst of flavour you get as well. Oh man now I’m craving a grape Hubba Bubba… Actually has anyone tried the Fierce Grape Gatorade? IT’S LIKE YOU’RE DRINKING GRAPE HUBBA BUBBA! So amazing.

    Now I want Fierce Grape Gatorade ;(

  2. I can smell and taste double bubble and black cat gum:) YUM!
    Love the history you included…and bubble gum tunes from the sixties too!

    1. So very true!
      It is also said that when someone offers a piece of gum, they are politely saying we need to graciously accept:)

  5. Yes and yes.

    But you forgot one! I’m chewing on Bubble Tape right now! Mmmm…the 1st bite is so powdery.

  6. Man – Bazooka Joe’s were TOTALLY the worst. Not only were they hard as rocks like you mentioned, but letting someone else take the first few bites didn’t really work either, because they would lose ALL of their flavor in about 8 total chews. So there was a really short “sweet spot” with Bazooka Joe’s, and that sweet spot lasted a total of 3 chews.

    However, you never got to savor those chews, because they always happened while you were reading the comic that never made any sense, and apparently was sometimes vaguely offensive:

    http://i.somethingawful.com/u/salmonseason/bazooka_joe/lion2.jpg

  7. Btw: I love doing the “juicy fruit” style fold of the stick of gum when it was really fresh. If someone could invent a sugar-free version of juicy-fruit that held it’s flavor for a really long time – this might be the best gum EVER.

    Get on it, Science!

    2. I have such fond memories of Juicy Fruit because that’s the gum my dad chewed. He always had a pack of juicy fruit in his pocket, so that’s naturally what I chewed, too.

      1. I had an aunt who would mail one stick of Juicy Fruit in our birthday cards. Usually it was stale, but it was still pretty awesome to get that stick of gum!

    3. Juicy Fruit tastes so good when you first start chewing it, but the flavor doesn’t last very long. That’s why Big Red is my stick gum of choice! Those commercials didn’t lie. :)

  8. Remember the gum that had the liquid in the center? It lost it’s flavor pretty fast but that initial sugary jolt hooked me every time! Was it Freshen Up?

    1. YES! :)

      That was always my favorite as a kid. Somehow I didn’t figure out until much later that it was modeled after chewing tabacco…

      Still, so delicious and fun.

  10. I weirdly don’t like chewing gum. I used to, but then I got braces and was told to never, EVER chew gum. So I didn’t. By the time I got the braces off, gum just didn’t seem so great.

    But I do have some fond memories of wheeling on a tape of Hubba Bubba, savouring each powdery first taste…

  11. This is totally awesome… I love going into old timey candy shops and finding candy and gum that I haven’t seen forever. Like Black Bart- it was the best, a nice licorice flavour and it kept its black colour so you could stick on your front teeth and pretend they got knocked out!
    Great link too, who knew that people were enjoying gummy goodness for so long? I do remember as a kid though, whenever going into the woods with my dad he could peel off a bit of spruce gum and we’d chew on it for hours…mmm, I still miss that bark taste!

  12. There’s a new, old time store in town, The Candy Vault. We stopped in yesterday for a stroll down memory lane. It touched my heart thinking about several awesome posts and childhood. Tastefully adorned with nostalgia; antique and replicated memorabilia such as toys, games and lunch boxes…I was just like a kid let loose in the candy store! There was a young man looking for a Pink Floyd lunch box and we shared the joy!!
    I actually found old cigarrette and cigar gums- also favourites from childhood- no sweet smell can compare on this planet! My husband found Black Jack but no Black Cat. *I was elated when I found and may’ve even hugged a 3 pack of giant sweet tarts! My dream was in flight but quickly took a nose dive and crashed as my husband was having a bitter-sweet experience- “LOOK at the prices”, he said! I could hardly believe my eyes!
    I get the whole cost of living dilemma but couldn’t they have left well enough alone…the candy for Heaven-on-Earth Sakes! I sincerely hope the owners will do well. Wealthy tourists and locals will support. We’ll be like a Norman Rockwell~ me staring wistfully through the window “panes” while my husband’s running down the street with over-filled pockets, and in all honesty, we’re really getting too old for all this;)
    I CAN take my piggy bank and grand-babies though=D

    1. Pink Floyd lunchbox, you say?! Wow, now that’s cool! I can barely even remember my old metal pail…lol.
      It is so fun to look through childhood candies. Every time I’m at Cracker Barrel I browse the shop, looking through all of the candies.

      1. I had an old-school metal lunchbox that I liked because it protected my squishy sandwich on the long school bus ride. It had pictures of trains on it, which didn’t really do anything for me, but couldn’t really be ridiculed either (who doesn’t like trains?), so it helped me in my never-ending quest to fly under the social radar.

  14. I love the first bite of chewing gums, it’s the best part. Especially good when you try to get rid of the aftertaste of a meal or beverage.

      1. SAME! There’s gotta be more… I wonder if we could all go and link our blogs together to make our own? Maybe with the tag “awesome things”…?

        Idk… How could we make it work?

  16. Chewing gum after a meal is good for your teeth because it keeps the digestive enzymes in your saliva going!

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