Ancient Roman Chewing Gum

One of the things I love about researching the Ancient Romans is how much like us they were. Did you know Romans even had a version of chewing gum? It was called mastic or “mastiha” (in Greek: μαστίχα). Here is a story about MASTIC.

A few years ago my husband and I were spending Christmas in Athens while I researched my tenth Roman Mystery, The Fugitive from Corinth. One evening, after a delicious meal of meze and chicken, the waiter brought us a complimentary digestif. The clear liqueur was served in a tiny shot glass. At first I thought it was an Italian drink called grappa. But as soon as I tasted it I knew it was flavoured with mastic! Mastic is a resin which only grows on the Greek island of Chios. The waiter said I was the first tourist to guess what it was.

I knew what it was because I had found some mastic nuggets in a shop on the island of Kalymnos the previous summer while researching my 9th Roman Mystery, The Colossus of Rhodes. 

Mastic is hardened drops of sap from a type of evergreen bush called the lentisk tree found only in certain parts of Chios. The resinous nuggets are the original chewing gum. In fact, mastic is the root word of masticate meaning to chew.

When I first found a little round plastic box of them on Kalymnos, I hesitated to try one. But I bravely popped it in my mouth and began to chew. It tasted like... mastic. I can best describe it as a sweet cross between cumin and carrot. The nugget was translucent when I put it in my mouth, but after chewing it for a minute or so, I took it out and examined it in surprise: the translucent, pale yellow nugget had turned white and opaque, and looked exactly like modern chewing gum.

In Roman times, doctors recommended that patients chew mastic gum to freshen their breath and calm stomach upsets. People today chew it for the same reasons.

In ancient Rome and Greece, people did not wear deodorant and many must have had rotting teeth. We know from the 1st century AD poet poet Marcus Valerius Martialis (AKA Martial) that some Romans had such bad breath that they added perfume to their wine! Others chomped mastic gum to freshen their breath. Some Romans even used toothpicks made from slivers of mastic. Here is an epigram (a two-lined poem) which  Martial wrote about a toothpick made of a bird's feather and not of mastic, which proved some were made of mastic:

This toothpick is only made of the feather 
that helps a bird in flight, 
It’s not as good as mastic, 
but will keep your teeth clean and bright. 

Martial also wrote this short poem, about a bald man who pretends to pick his teeth with a mastic toothpick so people won't realise he is toothless:

That man who lies lowest on 
the middle couch [the place of honour] 
he of the bald head with its three strands 
of hair and dribbles of perfume, 
who picks his loose mouth 
with shaved sticks of mastic,
he is a liar, Aefulanus... 
because he has no teeth!
(Martial VI.74)

You can still buy mastic gum today in some specialty Greek or Turkish shops. I have found sugar-free packs at Greenfields on Crawford Street in London. And of course you can buy them on Amazon. But the ones in my picture up at the top of this post are the raw drops, just like the Romans would have chewed.

ELMA mastic gum from Chios via Greenfields, 35 Crawford St, W1H 1PL

See if you can find some mastic gum and chew it. Some specialist ice-cream shops occasionally sell this flavour, too. Mastic is the taste of ancient Rome!

[The Roman Mysteries are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans as a topic in Key Stage 2. Carrying on from the Roman Mysteries, the Roman Quests series set in Roman Britain launched in May 2016 with Escape from Rome. Season One of the BBC TV series is still available on iTunes.]

Christmas in Athens - Brandy in Salamis

Richard's watercolour of Salamis

Saturday 25 December 2004 
Christmas Day

Breakfast at Flocafe at 9.00, just as doors open. It's one of the few places open on Christmas Day and there is soon as steady stream of Athenians coming in. Elegant young women in sunglasses, fathers and sons, young couples... If only it had been this lively at the restaurant last night. A croissant and cafetiere sets us up for the day. In Greece they call cafetiere coffee gallika which means 'French'.

It's a beautiful morning so we walk through the National Gardens to the Anglican Church but decide at the last minute not to attend the service. Instead I suggest going to the island of Salamis. This turns out to be quite an adventure, involving tram, train, bus, taxi and ferry and all the modern Greek I can muster.

We see a new stadium built for the Olympics, and also Piraeus the port of Athens. Piraeus appears in the opening sentence of one of my favourite books, Zorba the Greek. 'I first met him in Piraeus.' I have stolen... er... I am paying tribute to this famous first line by making the first line of book ten very similar: 'I first met him in Corinth' Apparently Kazantzakis wrote this first line in Salamis. Yay!

Piraeus is not pretty, but Perama is downright ugly. Such a shame. It is is in a superb setting. We catch the ferry from here. The big boats run every 15 minutes and a ticket costs less than E 2. Dirt cheap. The port where we disembark isn't much better. We run to the only taverna which seems to be open. Richard has a beer and I have an oily choriatiki. Hey! Christmas lunch! I ask the owner where the cars off the ferries are going. He says many Athenians have villas on this island or go to lunch in pretty villages. He suggests Selinia and points out the bus that will be going there shortly.

Selinia is sublime. Blue transparent water, a blue and white church, and a kiosk that sells batteries. But apart from kiosk man, it's totally deserted. At that moment a businesslike brown dog come up to us and tells us where to go: a little hippy restaurant on the seaside. He hangs around to keep an eye on things while we have our Christmas pudding: big Greek coffees and brandy and a ginger biscuit.

As soon as the sun goes it gets chilly so we move inside and watch a hilarious Greek soap opera for a while.

As the ferry chugs back into Perama a huge almost full moon is rising behind the hills where once Xerxes sat on his throne and watched the Greeks massacre his men at the Battle of Salamis.

We get back to Athens at dusk and wander into Plaka where we find a lively restaurant called Ydria. It's in the Palea Agora square, next to the Roman Agora. All the trees are lit up and it's packed with Athenians. Although the night is chilly all those umbrella heaters make it very toasty. We have one of the best meals yet and I'm surprised by how reasonable the bill is. The waiter brings us a complementary digestif and Christmas sweet. The digestif is clear and it a tiny shot glass so at first I think it's grappa. But as soon as I taste it I know it is mastiha! This is the liquid version of ancient chewing gum made from resin which only grows on the island of Chios. The waiter says I'm the first tourist to guess what it was. However, I should know. One of my main characters in book nine, The Colossus of Rhodes, is always chewing mastic gum like an annoying American tourist.

A great ending to a very different Christmas. We've already decided to make this a regular thing. Next year Christmas in Morocco, to research The Beggar of Volubilis and the year after in Egypt for The Scribes from Alexandria.

[The 17+ books in the Roman Mysteries series, including The Fugitive from Corinth, are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans and/or Greeks as a topic in Key Stages 2 & 3. There are DVDs of some of the books as well as an interactive game.]