It’s like October’s calm before the terrifying storm.
Before oozing zombies taunt children, before dripping vampires or giant walking hot dogs comb the vacant city streets on the 31st, consumers are dazzled at every glistening store corner.
It’s the only time the Pillsbury Doughboy will wear a blue Zorro mask or the Count Chocula family will congregate at the convenient end of the cereal aisle. It’s the only time the souls of Spooky Nerds and Howlin’ Laffy Taffy will come to life. It’s the only time the Jum-Blo Gum Ball logo will hire a bloodshot eyeball to fill in for the O.
That would be morbid to sell in January.
While the Oreos boast of their bursting orange innards, the snooty A-list candies bite their Hershey thumbs at the outcast fish with their Swedish accent and unfestive pound bags of Dubble Bubble. “Two for $4,” the cling tag reads. “Get ‘em out of our sight.”
In a world where Cadbury Adams and Wrigley dominates the chewy realm of gum base, corn syrup and sugar, Dubble Bubble still holds its head high when it slithers through the conveyor belts of Tootsie Roll Industry’s Concord Confections.
Still in a stretched rope form, the pink strands lie on belts of powdered sugar to avoid sticking, and wait to be cut and clothed into the twisted yellow suit with blue frills.
Although it was an accident, little DB was born in 1928 at Frank Fleer’s Chewing Gum Company and marked the start of America’s modern bubble gum buffet.
Blue bubble gum cigars are perfect for when It’s A Boy. Hubba Bubba Bubbletape is great for those who eat gum in 12-inch increments only. Bubble gum band aids mend imaginary boo-boos while bubblegum-flavored antibiotics cure imaginable infections. Three Olives Bubble Gum Vodka can make one sticky martini –garnished with a toothpick and a glop of Dubble Bubble sounds pretty sweet. A bottle of Jones Blue Bubblegum is pure cane sugar soda, for those who aren’t old enough for the vodka. For smokers on the lookout for an alternative brand to Marlboro or Camel, bubble gum cigarettes come wrapped in white with a brown filter tip. Blowing the powdered sugar smoke is probably better than a nicotine fix, and the cigarette packs even have sophisticated cowboy emblems on the front.
Tobacco dippers aren’t left out, either. The first aluminum foil pouch of Big League Chew weaseled its way into the bubble gum industry in 1980, thanks to the Portland Mavericks’ lefthander Rob Nelson and teammate Jim Bouton. Nelson first concocted the gum in a frying pan and shredded it to get the Skoal look. Now, sports lovers all over America can shove mounds of Outta’ Here Original or Ground Ball Grape in their mouths for the ultimate bubble-blowing opportunity during a big game.
That’s exactly what Walt Diemer, a creative accountant at Fleer’s Chewing gum Company, set out to do –make a new formula for gum that gifted chewers with a fun, bubble-blowing ability. The failure of Fleer’s original Blibber-Blubber gum made Diemer’s son, Dubble Bubble, an immediate success until WWII put a stop to production. While the main ingredients for dwindling amounts of Dubble Bubble were diverted to war efforts, the rest of DB’s brothers and sisters were rationed among hooked consumers.
After WWII, the gum came back headstrong as other Dubble Bubble flavors hit shelves and Bazooka rivals emerged packing extra ammo –Joe and His Gang comics.
Bazooka Bubble Gum was born in Brooklyn and named after American comedian Bob “Bazooka” Burns, who invented an odd musical instrument out of a funnel and two gas pipes. He dubbed it a “bazooka,” and proudly played it during a duet of Clementine with singer Shirley Ross in 1946.
Decades out of the black-and-white era, the pink wads of original Bazooka and Dubble Bubble are nostalgia at its finest, since most current gum varieties have a laser show of colors and tastes to choose from. Bubblicious, the over-achieving offspring of Cadbury Adams, can range from neon green squares of Savage Sour Apple to chunks of Twisted Tornado for the taste buds. Even Bazooka has jumped into the turn of the century with Bazooka Bubble Juice Nuggets that come in Rockin’ Original or Slammin’ Blue Raspberry.
However, Klutz Press cleverly recommends using Original Bazooka with its Bubble Gum Science book, which comes with six pink pieces and instructions for life on how to blow the biggest bubble, double bubble or even the triple bubble.
Although mass-produced bubblegum has spiraled into a vortex of changing consumer appeal, original flavors always stick with the pink, stretchy sweetness.
When Dubble Bubble was conceived, daddy Diemer perfected the flawless formula and grabbed the only food coloring available in the lab –it just happened to be pink.
These days, the Concord Confections family has brilliantly scatterbrained children who carry on the Dubble Bubble genes. Painterz Gum Balls sport the DB logo, but are designed to paint lips and tongues whatever color they devour. Cry Baby Gum Balls still posses the sweet DB spark but is packed with enough sour to punch a baby in the face and leave them in a stroller, crying. This leaves high hopes for Dubble Bubble’s grandkids, assuming that their parents swap corn syrup with someone even more dubblelicious.
So, when the Halloween aisle gets demolished to clear a path for Saint Nick and napkins with turkeys stitched on them, keep a sharp eye out. While DB sits on the shelf with sad puppy eyes and a red clearance sticker, be sure to boost the spirit of America’s most important bubble gum that is most forgotten.
Adopt every bag.
10.09.2010
You are all peas.
In the depths of my bowl of sugar snap peas once frozen, there is a lone broccoli tree. Drenched in pea juice at the bottom of my bowl, surrounded by bitten shrimp tails and little green balls that have so cleverly escaped the pod.
Where is it's origins? Why is it here?
It looks dirty. All green and stalky in appearance. It's the misfit. Has it made friends with fellow peas? Do they resent it? Did they bring it into their pea world with open pod flaps?
Was it inconveniently stuck in the conveyor belt when factory orders called for a shift change to pea processing? They lived together. Were frozen together. It was just looking for better weather. In my microwave.
I am the broccoli.
Where is it's origins? Why is it here?
It looks dirty. All green and stalky in appearance. It's the misfit. Has it made friends with fellow peas? Do they resent it? Did they bring it into their pea world with open pod flaps?
Was it inconveniently stuck in the conveyor belt when factory orders called for a shift change to pea processing? They lived together. Were frozen together. It was just looking for better weather. In my microwave.
I am the broccoli.
9.27.2010
Fixated Fix
There would be a void in my life without David Sunflower Seeds.
Freud calls it oral fixation. He has this theory that all infants pass through early stages of development; the oral stage lasts until a kid turns two. At this age, an infant’s main focus is oral stimulation provided by breast-feeding. A child who is breast-fed too much or too little can be affected later in life. As an infant, I survived on Similac with added iron and a plastic bottle.
Adults fixated in the oral stage develop an obsession with oral sensations, often participating in behaviors like nail biting, smoking and straw chewing.
I constantly find myself popping a stick of Polar Ice gum, biting my lips and touching the outside of my mouth when I am bored or nervous. The orally fixated are also known to suck on toothpicks and snack as comforting activities.
But David Seeds? They are my Snacktivity.
My snack of choice starts with garden dirt and a pattern of numbers. Sunflower seeds grow out of the center of the flower head in very succinct spirals, following the Fibonacci number sequence: One, two, three, five, eight and so on. This ensures that every sunflower will grow with maximum seed-holding capacity.
Ninety percent of David’s successful seeds come from America’s Sunflower Triangle. Gardens from Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and the northern plains of Texas make up the triangle. The other 10 percent come from Canada.
No matter where the seeds are grown, the chosen ones will get dry roasted in Fresno, at the main distribution center for my spiraling fixation.
Fresno is also where David Der Herbedian created the consistent mixture of slick seeds and plentiful salt that I so often crave. In his own grocery store, also serving as a gas station and tavern back in the day, he began roasting sunflower seeds and sold them as individual servings for only five cents.
In 1912, he started marketing them under the name David Seeds, which later became David & Sons. The name change came 14 years later, after popular demand influenced company expansion. ConAgra Foods bought the David name in 2001.
Other brands just don’t do it for me. Planters seeds aren’t salty enough. Frito-Lay gets an A for effort, but the seed texture is too dry. Publix seeds are just unpleasant – like seeds that have been plucked out of the dirt and sealed in a bag, often discolored and gritty. David gets it right every time.
ConAgra Foods can dress David Seeds in all the nacho cheese seasoning they desire, but I will never spend a dime on anything except the original. It gives me a twisted sense of pride to know that the original taste of David Sunflower Seeds, a roasted concoction of just seeds and salt, is still the #1 selling flavor out of the seven. Ranch comes in second and is the only other flavor I could bring myself to try; I won’t even touch that chili lime nonsense.
Out of the 142 seeders that responded to a David Sunflower Seeds poll on Facebook, 54 left comments naming original as their favorite flavor.
Original was there for me as a beginning seeder with training wheels. As a kid, I would suck on a single seed and bite until I heard the cracking sound. I would then extract it from my mouth and take it apart like a seedologist in surgery. I’d have a pile of kernels on the living room table, while my dad would lounge behind me on the couch, pouring the bag into his mouth and shooting shells into a cup like a machine gun.
For Christmas one year, he bought me a gift bucket of the seeds. While most kids were into Twinkies and Pop-Tarts, I was obsessing over the David-stamped bucket at the bottom of our pantry. We both were.
These days, it’s Dad’s fault that I can’t make it through finals week without a surge of sodium chloride. It’s his fault that I can’t watch the annual season of the Next Food Network Star without clutching a red bag during each hour-long episode. It’s his fault that I can’t write a paper without an overflowing mug of shattered shells at my side.
He wasn’t breast-fed either.
I scramble to Winn Dixie at 10:45 p.m. some nights to grab a 14.5-ounce bag before closing. When I buy a new bag, I can’t wait to break the plastic seal and unzip the 100,000 milligrams of sodium pending ingestion. Well actually, it is 135 milligrams per serving, but who counts those when most of the bag is gone in one sitting?
I drop a small pile into my mouth and store them in my left cheek until my taste buds convulse from the dissolving salt. I can feel it streaming down my throat while I crack the first shell open between my right molars and taste the first puff of seed protein.
My mouth is numb when I hit the 45 minute mark. My eyes are fixed on the TV screen, like 46 percent of David seeders who are glued to the tube while snacking. Halfway through the second episode of Roseanne, I can feel the sodium stinging the inside of my mouth. It soaks the inside of my lips, burning the areas that I constantly gnaw and tear with my front teeth. This snack was made for people like me.
Freud calls it oral fixation. He has this theory that all infants pass through early stages of development; the oral stage lasts until a kid turns two. At this age, an infant’s main focus is oral stimulation provided by breast-feeding. A child who is breast-fed too much or too little can be affected later in life. As an infant, I survived on Similac with added iron and a plastic bottle.
Adults fixated in the oral stage develop an obsession with oral sensations, often participating in behaviors like nail biting, smoking and straw chewing.
I constantly find myself popping a stick of Polar Ice gum, biting my lips and touching the outside of my mouth when I am bored or nervous. The orally fixated are also known to suck on toothpicks and snack as comforting activities.
But David Seeds? They are my Snacktivity.
My snack of choice starts with garden dirt and a pattern of numbers. Sunflower seeds grow out of the center of the flower head in very succinct spirals, following the Fibonacci number sequence: One, two, three, five, eight and so on. This ensures that every sunflower will grow with maximum seed-holding capacity.
Ninety percent of David’s successful seeds come from America’s Sunflower Triangle. Gardens from Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and the northern plains of Texas make up the triangle. The other 10 percent come from Canada.
No matter where the seeds are grown, the chosen ones will get dry roasted in Fresno, at the main distribution center for my spiraling fixation.
Fresno is also where David Der Herbedian created the consistent mixture of slick seeds and plentiful salt that I so often crave. In his own grocery store, also serving as a gas station and tavern back in the day, he began roasting sunflower seeds and sold them as individual servings for only five cents.
In 1912, he started marketing them under the name David Seeds, which later became David & Sons. The name change came 14 years later, after popular demand influenced company expansion. ConAgra Foods bought the David name in 2001.
Other brands just don’t do it for me. Planters seeds aren’t salty enough. Frito-Lay gets an A for effort, but the seed texture is too dry. Publix seeds are just unpleasant – like seeds that have been plucked out of the dirt and sealed in a bag, often discolored and gritty. David gets it right every time.
ConAgra Foods can dress David Seeds in all the nacho cheese seasoning they desire, but I will never spend a dime on anything except the original. It gives me a twisted sense of pride to know that the original taste of David Sunflower Seeds, a roasted concoction of just seeds and salt, is still the #1 selling flavor out of the seven. Ranch comes in second and is the only other flavor I could bring myself to try; I won’t even touch that chili lime nonsense.
Out of the 142 seeders that responded to a David Sunflower Seeds poll on Facebook, 54 left comments naming original as their favorite flavor.
Original was there for me as a beginning seeder with training wheels. As a kid, I would suck on a single seed and bite until I heard the cracking sound. I would then extract it from my mouth and take it apart like a seedologist in surgery. I’d have a pile of kernels on the living room table, while my dad would lounge behind me on the couch, pouring the bag into his mouth and shooting shells into a cup like a machine gun.
For Christmas one year, he bought me a gift bucket of the seeds. While most kids were into Twinkies and Pop-Tarts, I was obsessing over the David-stamped bucket at the bottom of our pantry. We both were.
These days, it’s Dad’s fault that I can’t make it through finals week without a surge of sodium chloride. It’s his fault that I can’t watch the annual season of the Next Food Network Star without clutching a red bag during each hour-long episode. It’s his fault that I can’t write a paper without an overflowing mug of shattered shells at my side.
He wasn’t breast-fed either.
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