Kurlansky seasons a narrative with amazing snippets of history making for a sumptuous read. His history of salt was informative, entertaining and perhaps best of all- a good launching point for a lot of other interesting reads. The facts that he pulled up brought insight into countries and traditions that I had never heard of. His history was original- finding new information rather than repeating historical tropes. Although I would argue that he spent probably a little to much time on salt cod- the book was one I could not put down. I would easily recommend this to anyone to read.

3.5. Super interesting. If you want to know a whole lot about salt and its sway over history.

I love reading history told through the lens of one topic, this was awesome.

This book was very poorly written and organized. It made it very hard to get through! A shame because it's such an interesting topic.

Expansion on subjects that author already wrote about in his celebrated and successful books about Cod, Caribbean and Basque Country, this sprawling, epic and encyclopedic saga encompasses the history of the whole world trough the prism of salt. Kurlansky is very idiosyncratic, erudite writer who somewhat reminds of Bill Bryson, but where with Bryson I simply breezed along, this time I fought long and hard for two months until I victoriously finished the book and felt like popping the bottle of champagne. I understand that the sheer amount of informations might seem off-putting to casual readers who like me, felt stuck with detailed technicalities about salt mines not just around the world but through the centuries, but believe me it is rewarding reading and the books brims with delightful anecdotes AND occasional ancient cookbook texts. If anything, Kurlansky knows too much so ultimately it is a joyful ride that left my head buzzing with all sorts of trivia stories.

From the top of my head I recall stories about camels in Nevada desert, British soldiers in WW1 who detested being fed with caviar and that for one special dish Chinese cooks might use thousand frogs. And that in medieval times, the punishment for those who ate meat on Lent days was public hanging. Oh yes, famous Dutch windmills actually came from Arabs who used them first. Don’t let me even start with Asians who mined salt (and basically invented everything) long before Europeans.
Fascinating.

“There is no evidence that such chemicals are harmful, and, in the case of iodine, a great deal of evidence that it is healthy. But modern people have seen too many chemicals and are ready to go back to eating dirt.”
4.5

This book is crap. I barely made it through the introduction, but gave it a chance in the first chapter. Crap, crap, crap. An insult to anyone with half a brain and half an ounce of history knowledge.

Interesting albeit not always engaging.

It was nice to get a broad cross-section of topics, although these felt narratively scattershot at times. Understandable given how nebulous the subject matter is.

Some satisfying etymologies. I really could have done without so many ye olde worlde recipes for salted foods being quoted in detail.