Salt - The Ultimate Commodity

Salt

Mark Kurlansky

We have studied and analyzed the many items that have been commoditized for various reasons, be it for social/religious meaning as seen with emeralds in Kris Lane’s Colour of Paradise or  developing a taste market for tobacco in the Marcy Norton’s Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures.  These and many other commodities had to be introduced to a culture or people to activate the chain of production, trade and consumption.  But Mark Kurlansky in his book Salt: A World History traces the basic human need for salt, placing it as an essential for human life on par with water and air.  Who has not used salt?  Salt is needed for the human or animal bodies to function down to the cellular level.  Kurlansky explores the vast timeline of human interaction with salt and makes many startling propositions. As a commodity, salt maybe the one of oldest and most widely used in history.  He looks at salt as a world history by exploring the local, regional, national and international scope of production, trade and consumption.  Quite ironically, in light of our class, everywhere on the Earth is covered in detail in this book, except Central and South America. 

The book starts in ancient China, and then chronologically takes the reader through ancient Egypt, the Phoenicians, Romans, French, English, Americans, India and scores of other civilizations and peoples. Salt is ubiquitous in its use across time, people and places.  Kurlansky quiet effectively uses the popular history approach to bring life what most, including historians, would see as a very boring and inconsequential study of an inexpensive compound we use flavor our corn on the cob.   The commodities we have studied this semester have generally be mined or grown in a unique location, mostly in Latin America.  Amy Butler Greenfield’s A Perfect Red is a perfect example of the specific climate of Mesoamerica/Mexico creating the only area in the world cochineal could be grown.  Similar climate/geographical conditions are explained by Gabriela Soto Laveaga in Jungle Laboratories where the uniqueness of the Papaloapan jungle region of southeast Mexico allows for the growth of barbasco.  Columbia’s Muzo district is another limited origination zone analyzed by Kris Lane in the Colour of Paradise, where the world’s best emeralds are mined. These location specific commodities provide a clear starting point for a commodity chain that leads to specific consumers.  Kane expresses in his conclusion, “Emerald’s genuine rarity, ascribed and shifting cultural meaning and ultimate uselessness gave rise, I would argue, to a specific type of commodity chain, perhaps the essential one” (3481,Kindle). In light of “essential” commodity chains listed above or better described by Marx as a “commodity fetish” item where the producer/grower have no knowledge or understanding of the consumer and vice versa, Kurlansky’s narrative places salt in category in what I call a “familiar commodity”, one that is universally mined or produced around the world as a familiar product.  Because salt has generally been produced locally it does not have the “fetish” issue that was the central theme of Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power. Kurlansky’s treatment of salt as a commodity is the antithesis of Mintz’s treatment of sugar.   

In ancient China, salt brine was used to preserve the vegetables and meats.  Brine was accessed by way of drilling wells and most towns were able to provide for their needs and surplus brine was evaporated to leave salt crystals, making it easier to transport and trade.  Other ways to produce salt is to extract it from sea water through evaporation and mine it from underground salt domes.   It is in the trade of salt that governments found a way to raise revenue through taxation.  Kurlansky places salt as one of the foundations of nation and empire building through tax revenue, giving the reader example after example of this through history to the present day.  For example, nearly every Roman town was founded on or near a source of salt to supply the local people and for trade providing an opportunity to collect taxes on these transactions.  In England the suffix of “wich” was used to signify the location of salt production.  Looking at a map of England reveals scores of towns with this designation.  Taxation for empire is a thread very familiar in the readings of this semester as seen how nations and governments tax sugar, bananas and tobacco to name a few.   Kurlansky provides an example when the state is too oppressive with tax policy.   It was the prohibition of local salt production and the tax on salt in India that Gandhi used as an impetuous to start his rebellion that eventually produced an independent India.  

The importance of salt in the feeding of people is very clear though out the book.  Salt was the preservative of choice through history until age of refrigeration.  Storage of food for winter, trade, drought, war or numerous other reasons is difficult or impossible if not preserved.  Fresh vegetables and meats will rot in a few days’ time, making food a very local commodity.  Salt as a preservative was used to provide a much longer shelf life to vegetables through pickling and then canning.  Salts preservation properties allowed fisherman of cod, herring and tuna, to establish nearly limitless markets away from the sea.  The curing of meats though salting in Germania allowed the Romans to enjoy ham, it is noted the Romans loved their cured meats.  Dozens of recipes are found throughout the book to emphasize how salt influences local cuisine and by extension culture.   The inclusion of recipes is similar to the Coe’s in the True History of Chocolate. 

Salt is a book full of interesting factoids and tidbits of information.  Flamingos are pink because they feed on animals found in salt ponds.  Romans paid their soldier in salt, thus the basis for the modern word salary.  Buffalo NY was founded at a salt lick popular with bison.  Kurlansky presents a wide expanse of history in this book through the thread of salt.  In doing so, he touches on themes we have discussed each week in class; globalization, empire, culture, people, taxes, geology, taste, transportation, markets, labor, consumption just to name a few.  Arjun Appadurai in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective spoke about meaning attributed to things.  It is in this spirit the ancient Egyptian used it to help transport the dead into the afterlife, attaching great meaning in the compound. Countless other cultures placed material and social value on the compound.  Throughout history salt has been a valuable commodity.  However, today with its uniform grained table version, to the thousands of industrial uses to use a road deicer, it is so common; one forgets how prevalent it is.  Human health is endangered if we have too much salt, but human life can’t exist with too little salt.  Kris Lane may have labeled emeralds as the “essential” commodity, I contend Kurlansky makes the argument that salt is the “ultimate” commodity.   This book would be a solid addition to a study in commodities for its worldwide overview and immense historical timeline. 

Salt: A History. By Mark Kurlansky (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2002, Pp. 484)

Available at Barnes and Noble or Online at Amazon – hard copy or e-book.