SALT - FREE READ (ONLY AT THE HBC) - READ AND LEAD - Leisurely Read

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Great Hulbert - jump in and post as you do.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Chapter Overview and Summary Review:

Chapter 1 begins with a history of early China and a description of Huangdi, a mythical inventor and early Chinese hero who, supposedly, fought the first war over salt. Some of the earliest salt mines are found in Europe.

There are records of the Chinese extracting salt from the ocean and trading it as early as 800 B.C. They would take ocean water in clay pots and boil the water off until there were only salt crystals.

The Chinese, realizing that salt was rare, would tend to include salt in sauce or paste condiments rather than adding it directly to the food. The most popular was a mixture of soybeans and sauce that we still use as soy sauce.

The Chinese also pioneered the art of preserving vegetables and even eggs by pickling them with a solution of salt and water.

Li Bing, Chinese governor and engineer discovered while building a dam that the salt that caused some water in streams to turn briny seeped up from underground sources. In 252 B.C. he drilled the world's first brine well. From this, they also learned how to use salt to insulate bamboo pipes against rot and they used these pipes to create vast plumbing systems. The Chinese also learned how to make gunpowder out of salt mixed with sulfur and carbon.

Salt was also instrumental as a source of revenue that led to the centralization of the Chinese state and the construction of the Great Wall under the Qin dynasty. It was the state monopoly of the production of salt and Iron that led to the great debate between the Confucianist and Legalist philosophies in China over how the state should be run.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Chapter Overview and Summary Review:

Chapter 2 begins with a description of the ancient Egyptian practice of burying rich and powerful people with food and other valuable items.

From this, we know that the Egyptians relied on salted fish and vegetables for a large part of their diet. They were, perhaps, the first civilization to realize that salting fish or meat would preserve it.

The Egyptians got their salt from letting water form the Nile evaporate. The Egyptians and the Phoenicians also used salty brine to make the native olives edible. To the Egyptians, salt was less valuable than natron and only the poor used salt for preserving bodies. This was reversed in the rest of the world, where salt was used by the rich and natron was used by the poor.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Chapter Overview and Summary Review:

Chapter 3 begins with a story of a man found in a salt-mine in 1573 in Saltzburg, which means "salt town,' perfectly preserved from around 400 B.C.

The man was a Celt, a race of people who lived in northern and Eastern Europe until they were subjugated by the Romans. They built their empire partly on salt and discovered many salt mines in Europe. These salt mines were so important that they traded salt with people all over Europe and some of their bodies have been found with goods from as far away as Turkey and the Mediterranean.

The body of a Celtic worker was also found in the deserts of Asia near China, mining for salt. The Celts were also known for their ham, which they prized and salted. Their salted fish was also well known in Europe.

The Celts, however, were not only known for their salt and salted meats, they were also fearsome warriors. They would fight naked and paint their entire bodies blue. They terrorized the Romans, even sacking Rome itself in the 4th century B.C. The meat of the back of the pig and the legs of the pig were so prized by the Celts that if two warrior disagreed abut who should get that part of the pig, they would fight in single combat to decide the issue.

Despite their wealth in salt and their fearsomeness in war, the Romans under Julius Caesar eventually subdued the Celts. The Celts never learned or cared much for the art of statecraft and they valued their individual liberty over the power that a united Celtic nation would have provided. This, it seems, was their downfall.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

This catches up and reviews where we were. Of course on Free Reads - everybody can make up their own schedule and read as fast or as slow as they want. There is no formal structure on Free Reads.

We are beginning Chapter 4.

Chapter Four: Salt’s Salad Days

We begin this chapter with an overview of Roman democracy and two groups - the patricians (the ruling class) and the plebeians (the poor Romans).

Every man whether patrician or plebeian was entitled to a certain amount of salt by right (known as common salt). There was not monopoly on salt like the Chinese but they did impose price controls.

In fact, the government would sometimes subsidize salt for the poor as a gift to the lower classes to gain favor.

Most Roman cities were built near salt works including Rome. The first great road in Rome was known as Via Salaria (salt road). Sometimes Roman soldiers were paid with salt (hence the word salary). The Romans salted their greens to get rid of the bitterness flavor (salad)

The Romans harvested salted olives but it was their salted fish (sardines) that was most popular inside Rome and globally.

The Romans made Garum which was a fish sauce used as a medicine; both Garum and sardines were mainstays of their economy.

The Romans' famous purple dye made from the Murex (mollusk) and Garum was worn by high ranking patricians.

[Hubert]

Bentley wrote: "Chapter Overview and Summary Review:

Chapter 1 begins with a history of early China and a description of Huangdi, a mythical inventor and early Chinese hero who, supposedly, fought the first war o..."

Thanks for the nice summary. The book is thus far what I expect of it - a simple item / ingredient, acting as a lens into ancient history. I might be interested in more details on how the process of economic monopolization (via salt) worked.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Glad you joined the free read.