Worth his salt! Salt of the earth! With a pinch of salt! Salt it away! What do all these phrases have in common? Salt, of course. The idea is that salt is important, and a pinch of salt makes anything palatable. The word salary comes to us from the days when Roman army was paid in salt and means literally salt money. Salad means, literally, salted. As does sauce.
Salt. Sodium Chloride. Every human consumes it on a regular basis. Too much or too little of it causes health problems. If you drink too much water, it might reduce the level of sodium in your body to cause death by hyponatremia or water intoxication. A very important mineral, salt is.
History
Not that long ago, salt was a luxury. It made and broke kingdoms and dominated world trade. Without salt no civilization would have been possible. It allowed humans to preserve the seasonal bounty, and sustain themselves on it during harsher times. Free from the vagaries of weather and able to transport such food helped form empires – dependent for their very existence, as it were, on the white powder called salt.
How does salt preserve?
If you leave vegetables to the elements (moisture, air), within days they begin to rot away. Their decay will form lactic acid, which in turn slows the rotting, but that process is slow. Salt halts the decay or proteins and carbohydrates for a while, until enough lactic acid has formed which then acts as a preservative. Without salt, yeast forms, and you’re left with alcohol, not pickled gherkins.
Salt is even more important in curing meats. The famous hams from Italy and Germany are heavily salted. Salt extracts water from the cells, and thus disallows bacteria to form and feast on the dense source of nutrition. This process also enhances the flavor of food. It is salt that gives parma ham its flavor.
What role has salt played in civilization?
In Roman times, the condiment of choice was garum, a heavily salted fish sauce, quite similar to the fish sauces common in South East Asia. Over time, this condiment was forgotten, but the importance of fish and salt did not diminish. Salted cod, for example, changed the course of Western Civilization. Brought in from the cooler seas, cod could be preserved very well by just laying them in salt. Salt desiccated and preserved cod. Salted cod, upon soaking in water for a day, was found tastier than other alternatives. This was revolutionary as a perishable source of food could be preserved for long times, thus enabling exploration of the world.
Salt is also used to make soy sauce, which is a descendant of early Chinese fish sauce. Salt is also essential to making cheese, to making olives edible. These were the major foods of world civilization and continue to be so to this day.
Conclusions
So that’s the story of the humble white powder we eat in copious amounts every day. It’s everywhere: in pizza, in burgers, in cheese and lots of it in commercially produced foods. It provides us with a basic taste, and prevents us from getting muscle cramps. The best salt is said to come from French coasts, hand-picked just after dawn breaks. It’s called fleur de sel, literally flower of salt. Fleur de sel from Camargue, in Provence, France is a superstar of humble salt. And you can buy it from Amazon.com now.
Afterword
This is a rough transcript of a speech I gave a couple of years ago. A lot of it is based on the book Salt by Mark Kurlansky (ISBN 0802713734).
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