NaCl.<3 !@#$*%

once upon a time in a land far far away mr farrell handed us a book titled salt. i was actually kind of excited i thought, "this really can't be a book about just salt. maybe it will be fun." i was wrong, dreadfully wrong. the book is about salt, never really did care for the stuff.

first off, i thought i'd read the introduction even though it wasn't assigned. bad idea i got to the second page of that and the person describing their prized salt rock said, "Those who think a fascinationw ith salt is a bizarre obssion have simply never owned a rock like this," and that was enough for me. i moved on to chapter one.

the chinese invented everything. they are the best. they have the first documented history. so on and so forth. the chinese salt history, however, started in mythological times. salt goes way back. there was a lake that people would go to and collect salt crystals, there was possibly a whole civilizations built around this "salt lake." Salt was traded, salt was used in iron, basically salt was the oil of the B.C. age. To make salt they would boil ocean water until the salt crystals appeared, we did this is chem minus the salt water did not come directly from the ocean.

the chinese do not put salt on their food especially rice. maybe thats why they have less obesity over there. Salt was used in soy sauce, which they had all these weird names for, which had the same symbol in chinese and japanese, but here in the u.s of a. we refer to it as soy sauce, so that is what i will call it. The chinese mastered the art of pickling with salt. Without salt the vegetables would just ferment, apparenlty unlike the U.S.A. again, china has much less alcholics. But i am very glad when i get married my wedding present will not be 12-15 jars of pickled vegetables, or else i would have already recieved them by now. Recipes were not so detailed back in the day either. Hard boiled eggs can be made from salt? WHAT!?

the chinese built dams and eventually discovered how to make brine wells. they used bamboo for piping because the salt prevented the bamboo from rotting, which was rather cleaver. soon these bamboo pipes were everywhere causing much chaos along the chinese countryside.

because salt was so very important, there was much controversy over this substance. there were arguments on the tax of the salt, the salt was a neccesity so should it be taxed. "DON'T TAX OUR SALT" could there have been a "bejing salt" party, but if the salt was dumped into the ocean it wouldn't quite have the same affect as the tea?

there was a monopoly on salt, which made china the j.d rockafeller of salt. the salt monopoly disapeared after 600 years, but later came back. you knew you were rich if you served pure salt at the dinner table in china. there were salt riots. things reguarding salt got ooc*. i cannot believe i just wrote that much about the salt in china. although, i think it is ridiculous to read about salt, i have to, and i think some of this information was genuinely interesting.


oh and ps. i never really did care for the chinese.