All About Salt - How and Why We Use It

When I said ancient, I meant prehistoric. It is believed that the earliest known production and mining of salt is thought to have occurred in Romania around 6,000 BCE, though salt was known to be harvested along the banks of Lake Yuncheng in China around 6000 BCE as well. The point is, we have been mining and harvesting salt for a very, very long time.

Salt was valuable in antiquity, so valuable in fact that the modern word “salary” descends from the Latin word “salarium,” which originally referenced a Roman soldier’s allowance to buy, you guessed it, salt.

The mineral influenced the politics and superstitions of the ancient world. Every culture had its own myths surrounding salt. These anecdotes were handed down, becoming parts of folklore and moralism tales, even managing to make their way into rituals and religious ceremonies, many of which persist today.

As things began to modernize, the trading of salt became integral to the revenue of developing nations. Salt taxes were levied all over the world, most famously the gabelle, a French word that, in the 15th century, began to mean specifically taxing the consumption of salt. This was so universally despised by the people that it made the list of grievances (the Cahiers) drawn up for the Estates-General in 1789 on the eve of the French Revolution.

In modern times, it’s more profitable to sell salty food than pure salt. Therefore, food production and salt production go hand in hand and why our likeliest consumption point for sodium is in processed foods.