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I think the author goes a little too far here in equating the monetary value of salt with how valuable salt was. Salt had serious religious and mythological val
by kouru225 3y ago
I think the author goes a little too far here in equating the monetary value of salt with how valuable salt was. Salt had serious religious and mythological value. In nearly every single culture salt is said to ward off demons. Salt was used in courting rituals where new couples would process their love by licking the same salt rock. In some cultures, salt was part of the burial process. There isn’t a single salt production site in the world that isn’t named something like “salt place” or “place where the salt comes from.” Sure, the fact that salt was involved in all these traditions and rituals probably indicates that salt was generally available to most people, but clearly it was still very important to them.
If you’re wondering why salt was so mythologically important, just go over to your counter, put some salt in your hand, lick it, and try to imagine how you’d describe the taste to someone who’s never tasted it before. You can’t. Salt is its own thing and there’s nothing else like it.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoThat’s true of every flavor.
- tsimionescu 3y agoNot sure that it really matters one way or the other, but all other taste buds are triggered by a whole class of substances, not just one or two. Any sugar is sweet (sucrose, fructose, even lactose), as are a bunch of other compounds (aspartame and the other artifical sweeteners). Any acid is sour. Savoriness/umami is caused by any compound containing glutamate. Bitterness is harder to pin down, but there are many compounds which trigger the taste. However, saltiness is not actually limited to NaCl. The part that triggers the taste is the Na ion, and other similar ions actually trigger the same taste - KCl is the most common, but compounds from Li, Rb, Cs, Ca can all trigger salty tastes.
- vlz 3y agoPossibly, but just because there is a lot of scattered evidence for salt being used in religious/ritualistic ways over the ages, doesn't mean it was important everywhere for that reason and at every time. I like the article for sticking to the textual evidence we have and concluding "we don't know" instead of speculating. However if you have anything concrete on the religious meaning of salt in Ancient Rome that would be interesting.
- kragen 3y agoi still use salt to ward off demons. specifically, food bacteria and heatstroke caused by dehydration. this was critical to survival before mass ice shipping, refrigeration, and air conditioning
- johnyzee 3y agoSalt was also valuable in economic terms, more so than the article seems to imply. There are entire regions in northern Europe that have been deforested due to salt production. It was an important and valuable industrial product.