Salt of the Earth

Since time began salt has been invaluable for its preservative and flavouring qualities. Salt is physiologically necessary for the functioning of human life, however there are many other uses, which in today's modern world are slowly becoming forgotten. It is believed that there are more than 14 000 uses for salt, and our grandmothers were probably familiar with most of them. Many of these were for simple use around the home before the advent of modern chemicals and cleaners. Many uses are just as valid today and a lot cheaper than using more sophisticated products.

The Story of Salt

Continuous and reliable supplies of salt were a matter, of such importance that the establishment of early settlements, the rise and decay of civilisations, demographic shifts of populations and the development of agriculture, were intimately related to the immediate availability of salt. The power to control a population's salt supply, was power over life and death. Erratic sea level changes, particularly in the Mediterranean, prevented some of these civilisations from obtaining consistent salt supplies, causing them to migrate or decay, conquer or succumb to others.

Until industrial means of extraction were devised, salt was only available as visible and exposed rock outcrops in arid regions, and as dried out salt cake on the shores of seas and salt lakes. In areas with wet climates, the protruding salt dissolved making it almost impossible to discover. It is probably this, more than for any other reason, that some of the great civilisations first developed near deserts and desert climates, for example the Mediterranean region, at the edges of the arid zones.

Eventually, salt routes criss-rossed the globe. One of the most travelled led from Morocco south across the Sahara to Timbuktu. Ships bearing salt from Egypt to Greece crossed the Mediterranean and the Aegean. Venice's glittering wealth was founded on salt, which was exchanged in Constantinople for the spices of Asia. Moorish merchants traded salt gram for gram for gold, and in Abyssinia, slabs of rock salt, called 'amoles', were used as money, a practice too of some central African tribes.

Not only did salt flavour and preserve food, it made a good antiseptic which is why the Roman word for salt crystals (sal), is derived from Salus, the goddess of health.

Of all the famed Roman roads, one of the busiest was the Via Salaria, the salt route carrying merchants' oxcarts full of the precious crystals up the Tiber from the salt pans at Ostia. A Roman soldier's pay - consisting in part of salt - was known as "salarium argentum" from which the word "salary" derived. A soldier's salary was cut if he "was not worth his salt", a phrase originating from the Greek and Roman payment for slaves with salt.

In the Middle Ages, salt became linked with superstition and spilling salt was considered a portent of doom. (In Leonardo da Vinci's painting 'The Last Supper", the scowling Judas is shown with an overturned salt cellar in front of him.) Alter spilling salt, a pinch of it was cast over the left shoulder where evil spirits were believed to congregate.

Until the 18th century, the social rank of guests at banquets was gauged by their position in relation to the table's salt cellar. The host and distinguished guests sat at the head of the table - "above the salt". People seated below the salt were considered of little consequence.

Salt taxes imposed by governments made them rich, but also contributed to their downfall. For centuries the French were forced to buy salt from royal depots. Louis XVI's salt tax was so high, it became a major public grievance, adding fuel to the fires of discontent preceding the French Revolution. As late as 1930, Gandhi led an Indian pilgrimage to the sea to make their own salt, in protest against Britain's high tax on salt, thus publicising their fight for independence throughout the Western world.

The popular phrase, "a grain of salt", may be a recipe for scepticism, but there can be no doubt about how salt has seasoned history.