more than SALT

Once upon a time, a proud, old king asked his daughters, "How much do you love me?"

"I love you more than gold and silver" one daughter replied.

"I love you more than diamonds and rubies and pearls," her sister said.

"I love you more than salt," answered the third daughter.

The king grew angry when he heard this last answer. "How dare you compare me to something as poor and common as salt?" he raged, and he banished the unfortunate girl from the kingdom.

Storytellers from many lands have long told versions of this tale. The details of each story differ, but the end is the same in all. The foolish father is served a meal without a single speck of salt in it. The food is so dull and tasteless he cannot eat it; and so he learns how truly valuable is common salt and he is reunited with his daughter.

Salt's importance comes from much more than just making food taste good, however. Salt is essential to our good health. It's in our blood and all the other fluids in our bodies. Without it, our nerves and our muscles wouldn't work properly, our stomachs wouldn't be able to break down food to give us energy, and our blood would have trouble carrying carbon dioxide to our lungs to be exhaled.

We don't require very much salt in our bodies, though. In fact, too much can be harmful. But we lose a little salt every day when we perspire or pee or cry, and our bodies can't make more. We need to eat salt to replace what we lose. Perhaps that's why so many people love the salty taste of potato chips and French fries. It may be our bodies' way of making sure we eat salt.

Animals need salt, too. Many animals get their salt from eating meat (remember there's salt in blood). But plants don't contain much salt, so zebras, deer, and other grazing animals look for salty water or natural deposits of salt in the ground-salt licks-to satisfy their hunger for salt. Herds of buffalo traveling from one lick to another wore down the first footpaths in America. Native Americans, and later pioneer settlers, followed those trails, often building villages near the licks to ensure their own supply of salt.

Early humans wanted the salt not only for flavoring but also to preserve food. Salt draws out water from meat and fish, making them too dry for bacteria to grow. Pickling vegetables in salty water called brine prevents them from rotting. Preserved in salt, food can be kept safely for months or sometimes years. The ancient Egyptians even used salt to preserve human mummies. They usually used a special salt called natron, but poor people sometimes made do with common table salt.

The ancient Romans placed so much value on salt they built one of the first of their great roads, the Via Salaria (Salt Road), to connect the city of Rome with the coastal town of Ostia, where seawater was converted to salt. The Roman army depended on salt to feed its men and its horses. Soldiers were sometimes even paid in salt, called salarium, which is where our word salary comes from.

As people began to explore and conquer ever more distant parts of the world, salt's importance grew. Sailors couldn't survive long ocean voyages without a supply of preserved food. And some historians claim that among the first steps a ruler took to prepare for war was to stock up on salt, to preserve food for long marches or sieges.

Merchants and governments grew rich on salt. Everyone needed salt, they reasoned, and would be willing to buy it even if they had to pay extra for it. Sometimes people rebelled. Unfair salt taxes, for example, were among the major complaints leading to the French Revolution in 1789 and to India's fight for independence from British rule in 1930.

No one, knows when or where the first person began eating salt, but its impact has been huge. Even today, when refrigeration makes it possible for us to eat fresh food year round, we still love our salt. Would you want to go through life without cheese, chips, and pickles, without ham, bacon, and pepperoni? We wouldn't.

So if someone ever tells you, "I love you more than salt," just smile and say thank you.

Salt was once so precious, spilling it was considered bad luck. To ward off evil spirits, you were supposed to throw some of the spilled salt over your left shoulder. Nowadays throwing salt is more likely to get you into trouble-with your parents!

Copyright Carus Publishing Company Nov/Dec 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved