Over the centuries, salt has been a valuable commodity. Traded thousands of years ago around the Mediterranean, wars were fought for salt, land ceded over it, and humans and animals alike have always depended upon it for survival. Salt has had a variety of uses.
Egyptians marinated olives in brine to make them edible; they also used salt for mummification. The naturally occurring salt in the soil along the Silk Road of China during Marco Polo’s time served to preserve bodies that were buried there.
The ancient Roman government subsidised salt prices during its reign to ensure that plebeians could afford to buy it. They did this to shore up popular support when they needed it, according to author Mark Kurlansky whose book Salt charts the course of this essential mineral. Indeed, most Italian cities were established in close proximity to saltworks, starting with Rome and the saltworks at the mouth of the Tiber River.
Nowadays salt is often used when cooking green vegetables to retain their colour and flavour. Romans salted their raw green vegetables to counter the bitter taste they yielded, and this is the origin of the word ‘salad’, which means ‘salted’. Salt also symbolised the binding of agreements in ancient Rome, so the absence of salt on a meal table would have been seen as unfriendly, even hostile.
The word ‘soldier’ is also a derivative of the word ‘salt’. In centuries past soldiers were paid in salt (which, incidentally, is also the origin of the word ‘salary’), which they would trade on the open market for other goods.
This seemingly innocuous substance has inspired passion and superstition for centuries and is an essential component of the human body. The identification of a salty taste triggers production of saliva and the gastric juices essential for digestion. This is perhaps salt’s most important function, although it is rapidly eliminated by the body and must be replaced frequently.