Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture: A History of Caste and Clan in Middle-Period Bengal Book

Chris Lavers started his review of this book for the Guardian with speculation on how an author can get released from publisher’s contract. The publisher receives priority by including a “first refusal” clause on a second book. You merely present your publisher with stunningly unappealing material. If they choose not to publish, then you are free to go elsewhere. A history of salt should work.

Mostly, a foodie history with emphasis on the historical importance of salt for food preservation. There is some discussion of industrial uses like embalming in Egypt and other parts of Africa. The sections about cod and Basque fishing were familiar from reading Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation.

Until the first invention by a Paris cook, Nicolas Appert, the “Father of Canning,” most food preservation was salt. The Vitamin C in sauerkraut made it possible for early sailors to avoid scurvy.


Appert canning jar

More sophisticated canning of fish and vegetables followed. Cold preservation and Clarence Birdseye, founder of the frozen food industry were not far behind. In 1928 Birdseye found a buyer for his company and fast freezing method, it became General Foods. But, until these relatively recent events, salt was a vital part of the economy. There were salt laws, salt taxes, and salt merchants.

I learned a lot about the magical properties of salt, well the beliefs and customs in its magic. Salt protects against the evil eye according to both Jews and Muslims. Remember rubbing the newborn infants with salt from the Book of Ezekial 16:4. Sprinkle salt on the stage in traditional Japanese theater to protect against evil. Anglo-Saxon farmers used salt on the plow when invoking the earth goddess for a good harvest. Romans called a man in love salax, in a salted state, the origin of the word salacious.
In the Pyrenees, bridal couples went to church with salt in their left pockets to guard against impotence. In some parts of France, only the groom carried salt, in others only the bride. In Germany, the bride’s shoes were sprinkled with salt.

An 1157 Paris engraving titled Women Salting Their Husbands demonstrated how to make your man more virile. The last line of an accompanying poem reads, “With salting, front and back, At last strong natures they will not lack.” Bibliothèque Nationale

From early history the West African silent barter reported by Herodotus and the ancient salt well of Shaanxi and Sichuan to the 1901 salt dome drilling of Spindletop which redefined the terms drill rig and well to mean oil, not salt. It's all here not too briny, just savory sample.


A crowd gathers to watch a side gusher on Spindletop hill in Beaumont, Texas which was the site of the first Texas oil gusher, 10 January 1901. (Photo by the Texas Energy Museum/Newsmakers)

Spindletop by 1902

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