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History. Nonfiction. HTML: So much of our human body is made up of salt that we'd be dead without it. The fine balance of nature, the trade of salt as currency of many nations and empires, the theme of a popular Shakespearean play... Salt is bestselling author Mark Kurlansky's story of the only rock we eat. From its single origin, to the other discoveries made because of it, fascinating tales of salt and the people who have been involved with it through the age are interwoven here. Fifteen recipes are included that will meet with every taste. Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends economic, scientific, political, religious and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale. "Kurlansky continues to prove himself remarkably adept at taking a most unlikely candidate and telling its tale with epic grandeur... With Salt, Kurlansky adds his name to this list, rising splendidly to the challenge of showings us the world that can be found in a mere grain of salt"..… (more)
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Obviously I expected some comprehensiveness – it’s subtitled a “World History” after all, though one never knows – and this is an interesting historical account generally. There are certainly many fascinating tidbits about how this rock played a key role in city-state/nation building, taxes, wars, and all the other great stuff of mankind. I learned, for instance, that my tendency to use salt in lieu of dressing on salads – a tendency that occasions much crap from others – correlates exactly with what the word “salad” etymologically means (salted veggies). So there. “Salary” predictably comes from the ancient sal as does, less predictably, “solider” (I always assumed the sun/”sol”). I’d place this story within the classic Forrest Gump genre; this sodium stuff just happens to be bumbling around everywhere the action is and somehow, someway, influences the outcomes.
Salt is the stuff of life and the author provides all kinds of interesting factoids supplemented by the most pointless dozen or so thumbnail images – mostly illegible, apparently thrice-photocopied lithographs. These half-assed inclusions seem to represent a concerted effort to avoid any potential copyright infringements. Either they should have dumped them completely in the hope that more enthusiastic readers might conduct parallel Google Image searches (not me, BTW), or really try to provide illustrations that do justice to those crazy Polish subterranean salt mines and those Six Flags over China-like bamboo pipe constructs. In my opinion the author might lose some of the innumerable recipes to free up some room. I’d call it a win-win. Perhaps readers who actually cook and like to eat fish might enjoy these totally convoluted assemblies of things I’ve never heard of. If you think the Food Network peeps are adventurous, wait until you read what better-heeled Romans expected from an entrée. These, and the other examples of how to utilize salt to preserve foods – one set of instructions required a “youth of around fifteen years” to stomp on something or other – are important obviously, but there were way too many of these crammed together at certain stretches…like those annoying multi-page “infomercial” inserts one finds in most magazines.
Well here I am going on and on like one of those circa-1672 French salted herring recipes. This is a reasonably engaging book overall.
First of all, it's not a world history. Asia and Egypt are discussed briefly at the beginning, there are a few paragraphs about salt production in the Americas once the Europeans get there, but otherwise, this is a very Euro-centric history of salt.
Secondly, it is
On top of that, it's just not a good work of history. Kurlansky jumps from one topic to another with no transitions, and often jumps centuries in confusing ways (like quoting a recipe book from the 1960s when discussing Irish salt making in the 1600s). Kurlansky never discusses or analyses his sources. He quotes a lot of recipes, but never talks about how reliable recipe books are or who wrote them and why. Other than that, there are no footnotes or references, and absolutely no discussion of where any of this information comes from.
In other words, this book is just a dry, unflavored list of statements about how salt has been used. There is no central argument to the book and no analysis of any kind. There were parts of the book that had the potential to be really interesting, but Kurlansky managed to make it all boring.
Kurlansky spices up the text with ancient recipes, drawn from some of the earliest cookbooks. They are a hoot to read. I doubt I would try a single one, but it is interesting to see how recipes developed over the centuries. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in world history. It covers all the same events the typical history book does, but from a perspective no one has tried before.
The main lesson is that if governments don't have some effective opposition, they will tax any necessity, monopolize its production
(If it's not salt, it will be something else, although the author doesn't go there.)
Full of fascinating facts and anecdotes.
Style: Not overly-scholarly, although well-sourced. Casual narrative but not trendy.
Still, incredible stuff! Even reading just a few pages of this book will give you material for days' worth of small talk.
Kurlansky starts our journey in ancient China and works his way West with each chapter until he hits the Americas. He captures salt consumption through the Civil War days and then makes his way back East towards Asia again. Different techniques for mining salt are explored throughout the chapters as well as the need for taxation on this commodity by many different countries. Wars and independence movements were started with tracings back to salt.
The word salt is a chemical term for a substance produced by the reaction of an acid with a base. Salt was found useful in preserving food and protecting against decay as well as sustain life. Growth in animal raising for consumption caused a demand for some form of salt to help preserve this meat.
Salt helped many nations prosper in the shipping and transportation business as well. Taxation on salt was common because salt was one commodity that was used by people of every income; therefore providing equal opportunity for taxation.
Salt helped shape many cuisines and cultures around the world as well. Soy sauce and ketchup are two of the many sauces that have salt origins.
My favorite chapter was about the origins of the Morton Salt Company which is iconically famous in many households in the United States. The United States is the largest salt producer and salt consumer. Only 8% of salt production is for food though. The largest single use (51%) is for deicing roads.
I'm not a fan of Kurlansky's style of writing and often found myself skipping over multiple pages in order to move through the chapters. I felt that he often times setup the history or background in relation to the salt usage almost in a tangential way. Halfway through the book I was hoping that the next chapter was not going to be about how another country or region used salt to preserve fish or another type of meat.