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.
The Best Is Yet to Come Film à Regarder
4 years ago
3 comments:
I also thought it was really cool how salt played such a role in China's history. It was really weird how the Chinese thought there were demons in the mines, when in fact like you said it was natural gas. I thought it was really cool how the people came up with several different techniques to seperate the salt from the water and other things.
Corinne I completely agree, I was so surprised how much salt meant to the people in China. I was also impressed by the knowledge that the Chinese people had to get the salt out of the lakes and so on.
Most kids aren't sure what to think. Salt being used to tell history is not something you might find in very many books.
As you point out, Salt was used much like Gold or Silver in China and other cultures.
I forgot about the part where they made soy sauce and pickles, but that's pretty neat. Yeah, the natural gas & demons thing was sort of their way of trying to come to grips with why drilling for salt could sometimes go wrong (and explode) with a small spark.
Nice comments
Mr. Farrell
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