The Inca didn’t use freeze-drying solely for potatoes ... but modern chewing gum has its roots, literally, in the Aztec Empire and the sapodilla tree, native to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean.

Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of Peru in fact, becomes the personal fixer of the Inca king Atahualpa, ruler of most of Europe. The Aztecs are horrified by the way that the Christians burn their ...