In this chapter is, I believe, the first negative review in this book expressed towards salt. Prior civilizations didn't seem to address any of the health aspects of salt; they just knew that it tasted good, helped preserve stuff, and was an important economic tool. Platina, a fifteenth century author from Italy, however, recognizes the unhealthy side of salt. He writes, "It is not good for the stomach except for arousing the appetite. Its immoderate use also harms the liver, blood, and eyes very much." He also warned people of the hazards of eating too much butter and aged cheese. Smart man, this Platina must have been. These dairy products can't sneak anything past him.

This chapter talked about cheese alot! That was fun. Cheese is pretty cool. The book states that the Romans made a really lot of different types of cheeses. Today, there are close to one thousand types of cheeses. If you want a quick run-though on some cheese names, watch this video:


skip past the first 15 seconds..

I never really thought about the effect that the discovery of North America had on much of Europe. Whever I thought about it, I focused on the obvious places, such as Great Britain, Spain, and other countries on the Atlantic Ocean. I realize now that it proved to be disastrous to places like Italy and the rest of the Mediterannean. Its all kind of eye opening. Its scary how an area can be doing so well, and after just one discovery start to decline so rapidly. It makes me think of those diagrams of a civilizations rise and fall that Mr. Farrell drew on the chalkboard. Those are terrifying...

Salting It Away in the Adriatic

Alright, first things first. In the section about Marco Polo, it mentions "salt cakes." That sounds terrible. I'm usually pretty excited about anything with the word "cake" in it, but a salt cake is something i'd never like to try. It says it was used as currency, though, so maybe they didn't eat it. Most people today don't eat their money.

Anyway: Italy. I may be going there in like 8 or so months. Mom still won't give me a definite yes or no. It seems like the Italians were pretty innovative in their salt harvesting techniques. They thought of that nifty multi-pond system, which was much more effictient than previous methods. It also saved alot of work; very little manpower was needed until the final stage where people scraped the salt off the bottom of the pond. The system that the Italian government devised to regulate salt prices was also pretty smart. They were able to manipulate it in a way to get a large profit, and at the same time keep the people happy.

The whole Marco Polo section confused me a good bit. I never even knew he went to China...and it doesnt mention his travels anywhere else at all.

Thats it for this entry...not too much went down in this chapter.

Salt's Salad Fingers

Salt on salads?

Silly Romans, salt is for hams.

I've definitely decided the Romans were a bunch of big ol jerks. They really seem to enjoy killing and enslaving other peoples, and then stealing their inventions. Its kind of like...when the big not smart bully cheats off the smart kids paper, and then kidnaps/kills him.

Yep.

...Wait, no!

No i hope that doesnt happen too much..

Er anyway, yeah the Romans jacked many or their salt processing techniques from the civilizations they conquered. On one page, it states that the Romans aquired satworks from Hallstatt, Halleain, the Celts, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and the Greek. After the big paragraph explaining the processes used by the Romans to get salt, it even said, "none of these techniques were Roman inventions." Oh well. I spose it really is true that nice guys always finish last. [selfpity]Of course, I figure I should have learned that by now.[/selfpity]

One thing that i've been thinking is prety cool as I read through this book is all the words and phrases that i've never really thought about that actually originated way back inthe BC days. It kind of amazes me when I realize that so many of these figures of speech (is it figures of speech, or figure of speeches?) actually had a literal meaning way back when. Things like "earning his salt" and stoof like that.

And now I have another reason to yell at my friends! Sweet. Not once, when I visited any of their houses, did they have the salt shaker out for me. Wheres your common courtesy? Do yins not respect my right to common salt? I'm offended. Actually, now that I know this is grounds for suspicion, I'll make sure to be super suspicious next time. I'll probably even look at you like this:

Saltfish hard as codmen. Wait.....what?

The

Celts

are

AWESOME!!

Seriously these guys sound so sweet. Big, burly, salt mining mountain men, with bright colored clothes and red beards, who go to battle completely naked except for an awesome hat. These sound like some really cool dudes. They kind of remind me of vikings. Definitely my kind of ancient people.

How is it pronounced, anyway? With an s sound, like the Boston Celtics, or with a k sound? I say it with an s sound. Yins should join me.

This has actually been my favorite chapter so far. Asians don't really interest me a whole lot, Egyptians don't really interest me a whole lot, and warm places like Egypt and China don't really interest me a whole lot. Ancient European civilizations do interest me alot, and so do not-as-warm places, such as the mountains and forests in Europe, which seemed to be where these sweet Celt dudes decided to reside.

Its a shame that the Celts didn't document their history. I think these guys are pretty interesting, and I wish we could learn more about them. All we've got the archealogical evidence thats been found and whatever the Greeks and Romans noticed and decided to write down about them. Good thing we had vigilant people like Johann Georg Ramsauer to dig up all those Celt bodies from their peaceful graves so we could learn more about them. What a nice man. One interesting question about the Celt's history that probably would have been answered if they documented their doings: Why did they travel all the way to Asia?

Another reason I like the Celts alot: MEAT! They loved meat. I love meat. Carnivores unite! Nom nom nom nom nom. They were the first to go crazy over ham, and they also ate venison. Me and those Celts have mighty simlar taste preferences.** I don't know what I would do without ham. And beef. Last night, I got a Quad Stacker from Burger King. Thats four big ol patties, PLUS a couple slices of bacon. It was fantastic. I love meat.

**Maybe this is because, if i'm not mistaken, i'm kind of a decendent of the Celts. The book states that the Celts remaining after the war ended up settling in what is Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, and I'm Irish. Its a small world after all, lads.

Salt

We made it out of China. Most Honors English people will agree with me when I say that's a relief. Time to move onto the sandy, salty expanse that is Egypt.

One thing I like about this book is that it definitely makes me think of certain things alot more in depth than I usually would. For example: the mumification process practiced by the Egyptians. Whenever I thought about it, my thoughts usually culminated in a "Ah, thats pretty cool. Wonder how they did it?" And thatd be about it. Reading the section on mummies in this chapter got me to think about it alot more, though. Its pretty amazing to think that, after four thousand or more years, bodies are still being found with flesh and skin intact. What makes it even more interesting is that they were able to learn how to do it and knew what would work and what wouldnt in the first place. They didn't have high tech laboratories, or computers able to predict outcomes to certain cituations. Its obvious that many ancient civilizations were fantastic thinkers and problem solvers.

Anyway, I need to set myself up for another really bad joke. The Egyptians used several important compounds during the mumification process. Some of these compounds were more important than others, and there was one that was by far the most important of them all; when it all boils down, its without a doubt salt (not literally, though, that'd only work if we were boiling salt water).

BAHAHA...yeahhhhhhh.

I did not like this chapter as much as the first one, though. It kind of bored me, and I had a hard time following along. It kind of seemed like the first chapter was about historical events in ancient China with salt incorporated, instead of simply the significance of salt throughout the years of early China. This second chapter, on Egypt, seemed to be flipped the other way. It just got a bit dry and repetitive for me after reading so many pages about who traded salt with who, who salted their meat and fish, etc.

I've been trying to think of some deep analytical questions to ask, but I'm not real good at that with non-fiction books. One thing I was wondering: without salt, would we know near as much about Egyptian history, or any ancient civilizations at all, as we do today? We certainly wouldn't know as much about Egyptian pharoahs and kings or the mumification process, because the corpses wouldn't be in any condition to study.

Theres one other thing that kind of disappointed me about this chapter. They never mentioned the salt-god, SodioTimmytus. =(

Oh, look! There he his. Rising from the East, right behind that there pyramid.

Lul, this is cool.

This is a pretty neat implementation to the class. Nice call, Mr. Farrell. Its fun.

I like blogging!



Its embarrising picture time, AMIRITE?

Salt, NOM NOM NOM NOM

Well, this is something different. Prior to reading this, I asked a friend about what they thought about the book so far, and I took it with a grain of salt (har har har...punny) when they said it was completely awesome. Actually, thats a lie. I just wanted to make a very bad play on words.

Like I mentioned earlier, this is definitely something different. Not only is the subject matter a bit unusual, but it's been a pretty long time since I've read a nonfiction novel, so this is a nice change of pace. Now about this whole salt thing: I was really surprised at how well the author was able to incorporate the significance of salt and almost history book-sounding information into the story. It flows very nicely, and certainly feels much less constricted than any history book. I like how the author kind of sublety includes the importance of salt into large historical events. I'm sure the author knew that it'd be pretty excruciating to read a whole novel filled soley with boring salt facts. Probably wouldn't be very fun to write, either...

I'm not going to lie, though. I can't say that I'm super intrigued by the various ways that salt ties into history. Maybe if Kurlansky found ways to tie in sports...or violence and missing limbs...or pets...or more missing limbs into history I'd be more into it. Even though I don't love it though, it does make for an interesting read. I certainly never knew how much salt tied into world history, and its kind of fun to learn about it.

One of the most thought-provoking sections, for me, was the debate about whether the salt and iron taxes should be reapealed or not. I'm usually all about morals and doing the fair thing, but I'm not going to side with the Confucians on this one. I think that in that time period, large taxes would be absolutely necessary to keep a government and civilization stable. Especially when there were really no forms of transportation, other than walking or animal drawn carriges, to get in touch and do business with other states, a state would need an easy to get, sure source of revenue to keep running. Sorry Confucius. I still think you had a pretty cool beard. =)

My overall opinion on this book so far isn't that its one of my favorites, but its by no means negative. Maybe a 7 out of 10. We'll see how things go.

Actually, a 7.5 out of ten, because of all the nifty recipies it tells us about. I think I'm going to tell my mom to make me some Zhacai, so I can have a little snack when I get married later on in life.

My dad can balance a salt shaker like this, by the way...