Keep on Saltin'

Venice monopolized salt after the fall of the Roman Empire. Venice was settled on islands in the Adriatic and had many lagoons which were protected by sand bars. On the sandbars, which are called lidis, ancient people had vacation homes and went to resorts there. I found this interesting because I didn't think that people back then took vacations. Even today the sandbars are a popular tourist attraction.

Venetians used the geography of the land to create salt ponds. From these ponds they created a fine salt. When they wanted a courser salt they imported it. The Venetians realized that more money could be made by buying and selling salt than producing it. They used this technique to create a monopoly. They could then afford to sell goods at lower prices that their competitors could not keep up with. I wonder if this was like the Rockefeller oil monopoly? The Venetians' system of trade worked well so they kept growing in power. Venice was very into controlling the salt trade. When they wanted to increase the price of salt they had all the salt works in Crete destroyed and banned local trade of salt. This would be equivalent to countries destroying their oil to increase the price of oil. I could just imagine the reaction people would have to this and it would not be pretty.

The famous explorer Marco Polo was from Venice. He went with his father on a twenty five year adventure exploring many lands. A controversy evolved about whether Marco really went on all the adventures he said he did. Even if his adventures were not true he created interesting reading material and sparked an interest in China.

More Salt

Wow! Let me just say that this chapter was really long. Can anyone guess what it was about......salted food once again. How did these people not all die of heart attacks? They usually didn't put salt directly on food but they used salt in about all their recipes. Is anyone else tired of reading about how sauce was made out of fermented fish? It is really getting on my nerves. Sauce is the main focus of this chapter.

There are a few interesting things from this chapter. 1. If salt was not served with dinner it was viewed as an unfriendly act or reason for suspicion. Next time I go somewhere and salt is not served I think I should make a big deal out of it. 2. To test for salinity of brine an egg was put in the brine and if it floated the brine was salty enough. 3. The Greeks created an entire vocabulary for salt fish. 4. Garum (fermented fish sauce) was sometimes used a medicine. I would have really hated it my doctor gave me that as medicine.

I really hope the following chapters will not talk about sauce. I really don't understand how people liked eating garum. How did they ever come up with the idea to eat rotten fish? But not only was the sauce rotten it was made from the leftover parts of the fish, the gills, innards, and tails. Talk about a bad combination.

The Amazing Celts

This entire chapter is about the Celts. I had never even heard of them before this week. They seemed to be a pretty interesting group of people. Preserved bodies of Celts were found in salt mines hundreds of years ago. These Celts were mining for salt when they were most likely trapped by a cave in. These bodies were impressive because the salt had preserved them perfectly. One thing that was found especially interesting was that the Celts wore brightly colored clothing. The Celts were considered barbarians but they did contribute valuable ideas and food.

A Celtic specialty was salted meat. They especially liked to eat boar so they invented the first salt cured ham. I am very happy about this because sooner or later this must have lead to bacon and I love to eat bacon. The Celts learned to dig the salt mines at steep angles because the salt was closer to get to that way. They also realized that bronze would not be ruined by salt so they made their mining tools out of it. They were also great iron workers. The Celts developed organized agriculture, the seamless iron rim, the barrel, and possibly the horse shoe. They also could have been the first Europeans to ride horses. The Celts are my heroes for that idea.

Basically, the Celts were great inventors. When the Romans conquered them they adopted some of the Celts' ideas and eventually thought of them as their own. That would have made me very angry if I was a Celt. The Romans thought they were barbarians but then stole their ideas and land. The Romans actually benefited a lot from the Celts (even though they would probably never admit it).

Addicted to Salt

The Egyptians were just as crazy about salt as the Chinese. Egyptians really knew their salt too, there were multiple types and they were all used for different purposes. They loved eating salted vegetables and made sauces with the salt also (much like the Chinese). They then started curing meat and eventually started preserving their bodies in salt. When a wealthy person died they were mummified. Go mummies!!! Mummies still provide interest for people, they can be studied, turned into a bazillion movies , or make scary Halloween costumes. I doubt the Egyptians ever thought their mummies would create such an interesting topic for humans thousands of years later.

Back then salt was difficult to transport across the dessert so it was made into three foot high cylinders and carried by camels. Could these salt sticks have been the first kind of lollipop? I can just imagine kids carring around their salt stick licking it until their tongues were completely pickled. I definitely think sugar lollipops are the way to go. Anyway, salt is still transported in this same way today so it must be a pretty affective method.

How were buildings made of salt? The design might have worked but wouldn't the rain have melted the salt and all of the buildings would have started collapsing. Talk about a design flaw. One cool thing about a salt house would be is if you needed a salt fix you could just start licking your wall. Wouldn't have been awful if people stole the salt from your house? You could have woken up one morning and found your entire wall missing. I hope people don't still use this ingenuity today.

This chapter was a lot more interesting because it talked about more than just salt. It covered the Egyptians and went on to tell about different cultures developing trade. I wonder what the next chapter will bring?

The Wonders of Salt

I was worried when we were handed a large book about salt. I couldn't figure out how someone was going to connect history through salt. When I started reading I actually found the book to be interesting. It is amazing how salt was so important in ancient China. They started out by collecting salt from a lake when the water evaporated each year. The Chinese then started putting salt water in jugs and boiling it to produce salt. With salt the Chinese started creating new foods by putting various things in jars of salt water and letting it ferment. Using this technique they made soy sauce! They used the technique of fermenting foods to create pickling.

The Chinese kept advancing and eventually they started drilling for salt. When they were drilling they discovered natural gas, which they thought was an evil spirit. Natural gas was then piped to boiling houses and used to boil salt water. Salt became so important in China that there were wars fought over it and there was a salt tax. Salt was also used as payment for work instead of money in some cases.

Its weird how things have changed over the hundreds of years. Salt is so abundant and easy to get today. In ancient China salt was a necessity for health and today people are told to decrease their salt intake. Its also interesting how natural gas was found because they were searching for salt and they thought it was a demon.

I think this book could turn out to be quite interesting.