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Salt: A world history by Mark Kurlansky, Walker, $28, ISBN
0802713734

THESE portraits of a single substance are a curious genre, aren’t they?
Phosphorus, gold, salt—each provides a slice through human history that
encompasses science, technology, economics, social commentary, religion,
folklore and plenty of anecdotal tales.

Mark Kurlansky made the idea work for cod, and now he turns to salt. For a
renowned food writer, it’s a natural partnership. This is largely a history of
salt as commodity, so we miss out on, say, salt’s centrality to ocean
circulation, the Messinian salinity crisis of 6 million years ago, desalination
technology, or the biology of the salt taste receptor.

My head buzzed with saline associations from the first few pages. Freud had
his own salacious take on salt’s symbolism, and there are sound biological
reasons to link it with life and fertility. But who knew that “Gaul” comes from
the Greek hal (as in “halogen”), or why the Latin sal found its way into
“salary”, “salad” and “soldier”? Seasoned with recipes new and old, steeped in
fascinating asides, and sweetened with Kurlansky’s elegant prose, Salt is a rich
bouillabaisse that is well worth lingering over.