Chapter Three

A Pinch of History

34
Salt helped early civilisations adapt beyond groups
of nomadic hunter-gatherers, who would get their
bodily salt requirements from meat, into agricultural
communities who could preserve food all year
round. As far back as the ancient Egyptians around
6,500 BC and over 6,000 years ago in ancient China,
people have developed systems for salt production
and used salt to reduce our dependence on seasonal
food. With salt, we developed the ability to transport
food over great distances, allowing us to explore the
world and build empires. People have always risen
to the challenge to expand and make or mine salt
all around the world. In my view, our determined
imagination to produce salt has been a significant
factor in exploration. It could be argued that salt was
one of the pivotal foods that shaped civilisation.
In Europe, salt has always been instrumental to
growth and trade. The major sea salt producers
started in the Mediterranean. The Romans and
Venetians set up saltworks and used their monopolies
to increase their political dominance. Establishing
an empire is not solely attributable to the availability
of salt, but it certainly helped. The Romans required
salt for their army and horses, so they set up more
than 60 saltworks around the Roman empire. The
Via Salaria or Salt Road that led from Rome 242km
or 150 miles to the Adriatic coast was one of the very
first great Roman roads. This approach of strategically
located and productive saltworks linked to empire
building endured for thousands of years. In Britain,
towns ending with a –wich denote old saltworks, for
example, Nantwich and Droitwich.
As their empires eventually declined, there was
a shift towards the Atlantic salt producers who
grew to prominence. Salt made in Portugal, Britain,
Holland and France fuelled the exploration of the
Americas in the 1500s and 1600s. As colonial
North America was establishing itself, salt was
produced on Caribbean islands throughout the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often
subject to piracy and conflict over control. But then
saltworks started to spring up along the East coast of
the United States in the 1860s in response to rising
prices from Britain and to reduce the huge volume of
heavily taxed imports. They produced huge amounts
of salt and eventually secured autonomy to reduce
their reliance on salt from Europe.
A Sign of Status
Historically, salt cellars on the table were an ornate
status symbol. How near you sat to the salt at the
table was an indicator of social standing. In poorer
households, salt would have been simply displayed
in a seashell.
I think that we are not so different today to people
from the past. In fact, the way we use and display
salt still indicates status, wealth and style. Today,
we may choose to display a ceramic salt pig rimming
with artisan salt flakes in a prime position next to
the oven, or we may have a fancy rock salt grinder
to adorn the table.
Salt’s Symbolic Value
The word ‘salary’ comes from the Latin sal meaning
salt. It is reputed Roman legionaries were paid in
salt or were at least seen to be ‘worth their salt’.
This notion of value associated with salt has become
embedded in our language. The French word solde,
also stemming from sal, meaning pay, is also where
the English word ‘soldier’ originates from.
Historically, salt was also regularly used to bind
agreements. There are numerous examples of
symbolic wedding gifts involving salt to seal pacts.
Israel, Syria and Egypt used salt as part of greetings,
celebrations and agreements, a tradition to
exchange a pinch of salt from one pouch to another.
Supposedly, the deal couldn’t be broken unless they
could retrieve their own grains of salt from the other
partner’s pouch. In medieval Britain, salt was used
as well as gold for trade deals.
Praising someone by referring to them as ‘salt of the
earth’ stems from a biblical phrase that has come to
mean humble, hard-working and kind. It’s also a mark
of honesty and good character to be ‘worth their salt’.
Controlling the salt is something that every chef
understands – we understand the power of salt.
A Pinch of History 35
 This is why in a restaurant the salt will normally be
in a bowl on the pass next to the chef. Historically,
it has been pretty similar with imperial nations,
colonialists and despots all monopolising the salt.
Every so often, there have been salt rebellions, none
more famous than in India. Mohandas Gandhi was
fuelled by the British salt monopoly of the time to
gain independence. Gandhi and his followers walked
the 240 miles to the sea to break the law and harvest
their own salt in protest at the British policy. What
started out as a dozen people turned into thousands
and in 1931 the Indian people won the right to collect
their own salt. To seal the deal, Gandhi was offered
a cup of tea from the Viceroy of India as an olive
branch and attempt at appeasement. He famously
refused and instead asked for water, lemon and a
pinch of salt.
Finally, salt is sexy. The Romans called a man in
lust salax – being in a salted state is the origin of the
36 Salt and the Art of Seasoning
word ‘salacious’. In Spain, bridal couples went to
church with salt in their left pocket to guard against
impotency, while in Germany, the bride’s shoes were
sprinkled with salt.
An Essential Element
We have about 250g or 9oz of salt in our bodies. It
is essential for us to survive, helps us retain water
within our cells and conveys messages to our brains
when dissolved into electrolytes. Meat is a natural
source of salt whereas vegetables aren’t. This is
part of the reason why hunter-gatherers in North
America neither made nor traded for salt while
agricultural peoples did.
Interestingly, Masai nomadic cattle herders meet
their salt requirements by bleeding livestock and
drinking the blood. I’m not suggesting a return
to relying on meat for our salt requirements, but
I do find it fascinating to think how much our Salt Today
relationship with salt has changed and how there There are hundreds of uses for salt today and the
might be a risk of becoming minerally deficient by modern salt industry claims that there are more
adopting a plant-based diet. By removing meat and than 14,000 wide-ranging applications, including
fish from your diet, you may need to increase your pharmaceuticals, melting ice on roads, making
salt intake by adding more to your vegetables. soap, various uses in the textile industry, multiple
Wild herbivores actively forage for salt. If you agricultural roles and, most importantly to me, the
were to follow an array of animal tracks in the preparation and cooking of food.
wild, they would often lead to a natural salt lick Historically, salt was used primarily to preserve
or brine spring. food, and for those few people who could afford
it, to enhance its flavour. The huge growth in how
it’s used today has made salt a victim of its own
Preservation success. In our desire to produce more salt, we’ve
Pre-refrigeration, livestock was often slaughtered started using the same product in our food that we
in winter and salted to preserve the meat when use to grit our roads. It’s incredible how useful salt
fodder crops were in scarce supply. The role of is across many industries, but for cooking we need
salt to preserve foods is enormous and has played to take a step back in time and return to using more
a huge part in the supply and demand of food and naturally produced salts full of tasty minerals. We
movement of people. Garum sauces that are salty, need to stop eating refined table salt just because it’s
fish-based ferments were extremely popular at the cheaper and look after our health by consuming salt
time of the Roman and Venetian empire but fell that’s naturally lower in sodium.
out of favour due to the intensity of their taste and
aroma. Recently though, I’ve noticed a resurgence
of interest in fermented salted fish and predict that
more and more restaurants will soon be producing
umami-rich, salty garum sauce to elevate their
menus.
In the past, salt was a ticket to travel. If food could
be preserved, then longer voyages and exploration
became possible. Salt pork and beef played a huge
role in transporting food at the time of maritime
exploration and colonialism. Salted fish was also
hugely popular in Europe when the Christian
calendar was peppered with fasts. The landing and
curing in salt of both herring and then cod were a
way to circumvent the fasts with protein when meat
was off the table.

A Pinch of History 37