It is to be believed that salt eating developed as humans learned how to keep animals and grow crops in the years after 10,000 BC. As the proportion of meat in their diet fell, people had to find salt for themselves and for their domesticated animals. Salt has another crucial property that made it important for the development of human society.
By 2000 BC, people knew that adding salt to food stopped it going off. Salt was used to preserve meat, fish and vegetables, and to create delicacies such as salted olives, which added variety to the diet.
In Assyria, friends denoted welcome and kinship with fellow diners as ‘a man of my salt’ a person trusted to share a valuable flavor enhancer.
Salt processing influenced North America’s food history before contact with Europeans. For over two thousand years, the Maya carried on salt trade that linked lower Central America with Mexico.
In the Caribbean the Arawak were so blessed with salt pans that they named the island of St. Martin ‘Sualouiga’ (Land of Salt).
Herodotus, the author of The Histories (450 BC), detailed a brining method that remained viable in the ancient Mediterranean for centuries. He explained how village fisherman stored catches of smelt and thunderfish in casks by smashing them with salt into a mealy constituency for forming doughy cakes for baking.
Until the 19th century, the most important use of salt was in food, though it was also used to treat leather, dye textiles and in making pottery. In the 19th century, chemists discovered ways of using salt to make a whole range of new chemicals. Manufacturers today claim there are more than 14,000 uses for salt.
This industrial demand for salt caused a growth in the industry and much more extensive deep mining and drilling of salt. Salt shortages effectively ended by the middle of the 19th century.
History of Salt
