
Why Salt Was So Important Throughout History - kaycebasques
https://bookworm.club/2018/07/salt/
======
basch
Salt does other things to food besides alter taste and preserve.

"Salt is special. See, rather than simply flavoring meat by working itself in
between muscle fibers, it actually alters the structure of meat, primarily by
causing certain parts of the protein myosin to become dissolvable in water.

What does this accomplish? Well, by dissolving myosin, muscle structure is
greatly loosened, allowing it to retain more moisture (this is the principle
behind brining), and more importantly in this case, it allows proteins between
muscle groups to cross-link, causing them to stick to each other.

This is why, for instance, sausages get a nice bouncy, snappy texture, and why
if you remove the salt from one, it becomes crumbly and dry (see here for more
info on salting and making sausages, and here for some deeper scientific info
on the process of salting meat. [http://qpc.adm.slu.se/Low_salt_pig-
meat_products/page_23.htm...](http://qpc.adm.slu.se/Low_salt_pig-
meat_products/page_23.htm")

[https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/05/food-lab-tacos-al-
pastor...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/05/food-lab-tacos-al-pastor.html)
(and a variant I like even more [https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/02/how-to-
make-mexican-pueb...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/02/how-to-make-mexican-
pueblan-tacos-arabes.html))

The same idea works with steak, but you need to be careful if you are anywhere
between immediately salting the steak, and less than an hour. (scroll to the
Salt section) [https://www.seriouseats.com/2011/03/the-food-lab-more-
tips-f...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2011/03/the-food-lab-more-tips-for-
perfect-steaks.html)

~~~
cup-of-tea
> if you remove the salt from one, it becomes crumbly and dry

If you remove the salt it is not a sausage. The word sausage comes from Latin
_salsus_ meaning "salted". Salad and sauce also come from this root (more
obviously in the Spanish _salsa_ ).

~~~
lgessler
If you showed a tube of ground meat to some people and asked if it looked like
a sausage, most would agree it does without insisting that you check to see if
it has salt. While you're right about the word's etymological history[1],
there is nothing that prevents words from obtaining new meanings that might
seem like they're at odds with their etymological histories. A good example of
this: nice[2].

[1]:
[https://www.etymonline.com/word/sausage](https://www.etymonline.com/word/sausage)

[2]:
[https://www.etymonline.com/word/nice](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nice)

~~~
philwelch
I don't know anybody who would call this a sausage:
[https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/Kirkland-Signature-
Le...](https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/Kirkland-Signature-Lean-Ground-
Beef-Hamburger-Chubs%2C-1-lb%2C-5-ct.product.10182015.html)

~~~
dshkbxzu
Yeah, because it doesn't look like a sausage. The shape of it being a tube of
meat is what people call a sausage.

The poster youre replying to doesn't say "ground beef" = " sausage" so I don't
see your point.

~~~
philwelch
But this ground beef literally comes in tubes. Look at the second picture.

------
dghughes
Other uses of salt are in coffee, with tequila and salad. Salt reduces any of
the bitterness in those things. It's why a salad is called a salad since the
Romans salted the bitter greens they ate to reduce the bitterness.

------
menacingly
I'm usually a fan of our "of general intellectual interest" type articles, but
this one doesn't quite justify its existence.

It's not very satisfying to read a list of the things you'd roughly guess from
reading the headline.

~~~
rebuilder
The article is just a host for affiliate links.

~~~
kaycebasques
I wrote the article. Yes, I'm trying to use affiliate links to make this
passion project more sustainable in the long term, but I'm definitely not just
cranking out content for the sake of sales. I'm actually quite discouraged at
the moment because I can't get any traffic to the affiliate. I'm 90 days in
and my account will be canceled if I don't get 3 sales by 180 days.

My general strategy is to write about books that I happen to be reading
anyway. I'm finding that it's a great way to deepen my knowledge retention of
the books that I read. It took me about 5 to 7 hours to synthesize the
contents of the book into these main themes. If you read the book you'll find
that it's organized very differently from the themes that I've identified.

So, sorry if it's coming off as garbage affiliate content just created for the
sake of sales. Definitely not my intention.

~~~
JayNeely
I'd encourage you to expand the book-promoting paragraph to include a bit more
info / some interest-generating hooks about what the book offers that the
article itself hasn't already provided.

If you really want to make this model sustainable long-term I might even make
the recommendation paragraph dynamically customized based on referring source
(here's a WordPress plugin that would let you do this:
[https://wordpress.org/plugins/if-so/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/if-so/)).
History enthusiasts are likely to be intrigued by a different set of things
from the book than HN's business & systems-thinkers or an RPG community
interested in world-building inspiration.

Lots of people will read a general-interest article (quick & no cost), but to
get conversions to an actual sale, you need to target specific interests.

~~~
kaycebasques
Great, thank you for the tips.

------
madman2890
Thanks for the post. I was just in Seoul and at the Gyeongbokgung museum they
had an entire section dedicated to salt, it's history, different forms, and
importance. Until recently, in that expo and reading this article, I didn't
realize just HOW important salt truly is.

~~~
sasaf5
If you have the chance, don't forget to taste the Korean "flower salt", which
is basically salt in crystal flakes, as it naturally forms during evaporation.
I haven't yet found a better salt for beef.

~~~
JacobJans
My favorite salt, and relatively affordable, is Celtic Sea Salt. There are so
many varieties of salt out there!

~~~
Fnoord
Sure, as long as you don't claim its magically more healthy than other forms
of NaCl. Not saying _you do_ ; just seen that regularly claimed by people who
prefer/swear by certain salts.

~~~
JacobJans
I don't make any health claims; however, un-processed salts, such as Celtic
Sea Salt contain much more than just sodium. They contain many other minerals.

In other words, Celtic Sea Salt is more than just NaCl.

------
giardini
Wish we had used Kurlansky's book for European history: I now have some
understanding of the Hanseatic League's origin! Who could have believed a book
titled "Salt" could be so enlightening and fascinating:

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
[https://amzn.to/2L2DO4N](https://amzn.to/2L2DO4N)

While this this sounds pedantic (who besides me would get excited about a good
explanation the origins of "the Hanseatic League"?) but Kurlansky really makes
it fascinatingly rich reading.

------
al_ramich
Pretty fascinating to see all the applications of Salt. You would think that
the food industry is the largest application but not quite
[https://eusalt.com/sites/default/files/page-
documents/Salt%2...](https://eusalt.com/sites/default/files/page-
documents/Salt%20Applications%20-%202016.pdf)

~~~
kaycebasques
Thank you. Kurlansky goes into some of the applications of salt in the book. I
was thinking about adding a section to this article on how salt drove
technological innovation, but couldn't quite capture all the different events
coherently.

------
attaboyjon
The book 'Cod' by same author is also a really good, if not better book. I'm
always impressed when someone can make a good story out of a seemingly boring
topic.

[http://a.co/0tknqbI](http://a.co/0tknqbI)

------
vfc1
With the advent of refrigeration, we need salt less than ever. The problem is
that brands have used it to gain a comercial advantage, to the point where if
we eat some processed food and dont add any extra salt, we are already
exceeding the daily recommended limit.

The link between salt and hypertension is well known by the general public,
but less well know is that salt is a major cause of stomach cancer.

There is just so much salt hidden in everyday food, that we are not even aware
of.

Yet, its possible to do a very salty tasting soup just by using carrot juice
or celery as the base instead of water, as those vegetables are relatively
high in sodium.

You taste it and could swear that the soup was salted, when there is no added
salt.

~~~
ghein
Salt to hypertension thesis has been hit with a number of problems recently.
As have many other "known" results in dietary and epidemiological studies.

Current research suggests that while salt is bad for people WITH hypertension
the causal link between elevated consumption and hypertension isn't what was
earlier believed. One study here
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317099.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317099.php)

~~~
elboru
I reached a point where I don't know what to believe, everything cures and
causes cancer at the same time, every week I'll ran into an article about a
new study contradicting some random common knowledge.

I guess the key is to live a balanced life, don't consume anything in excess
and don't worry too much. "In medium virtus est"

~~~
greggyb
My favorite guidance is Pollan's, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."[0]

Another piece of guidance I like is this (paraphrased): Eat absolutely
anything you want. But make it all yourself. If you want cookies and cake and
ice cream, great! Buy flour and sugar and butter and chocolate and milk and
cream, and make them yourself.[1]

Now, these don't directly address your point about conflicting research. They
give reasonable heuristics that work well, though. Now, clearly you can come
up with pathological examples that follow the advice above - any of us could
come up with dozens that are reasonable. But being precise and 100% correct is
not the point of a heuristic.

[0] [https://michaelpollan.com/reviews/how-to-
eat/](https://michaelpollan.com/reviews/how-to-eat/)

[1] Paraphrased from an interview in Cooked. The 4-part series was produced
for Netflix.

~~~
teslabox
With regard to salt, I like the advice “salt to taste”: add salt to your food
until it taste good. Salt has many roles in the body; it was simplistic and
wrong to blame a oerson’s high blood pressure on salt consumption.

------
chobeat
I'm reading that book right now. It's very well written and light considering
the many complex subjects that it covers.

------
jlebrech
it's also important for encoding passwords.

~~~
baud147258
And in online conversations, spread all over the discussion threads

~~~
jlebrech
i should have guessed it, HN has no humor

