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Oh jeez, you folks are making a book that I've wanted to read for a long time into June's BoTM? Damnit... If I can finish up A Fire Upon the Deep in the next couple days I'll pick this up and join in on the fun. I love history of the world via X books, they are usually a ton of fun.
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Jun 7, 2017 04:38
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:30 |
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So, started reading this over the weekend and managed to blaze my way through the first part. It is very easy to read, which is nice. Lots of interesting little tidbits as well, like I was unaware that Rome/France/etc. had a version of fish sauce that they used. Having just taken a vacation to Vietnam, I can attest to how, while fish sauce is good on the dishes it's designed for, I couldn't imagine it on what I think of as French/Italian/European fare. Small question for those of you reading, but do you have a hard time following all the different places that the author mentions? I'm a layman when it comes to history, although I do love the subject, and following the names of all the different ports/people that are mentioned in each chapter can be a bit daunting for me. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing out on part of the wow factor of a particular section because some-person-from-some-port did something that allowed his country to grab control of another port and start to dominate the salt trade/destroy salt works/etc.
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Jun 12, 2017 02:25
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:
I'm definitely in the Charlie Brown camp. I mostly do my reading in the 45 minutes of quiet time I have before my wife and the dogs roll out of bed in the morning or on my 2 hours of daily commute. Can't be bothered to Google stuff. It does make me feel really guilty for not knowing exactly what is going on, though.
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Jun 12, 2017 03:58
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:No guilt! No shame! Them words are words I like to hear! I do have a salt-based question that hasn't been addressed by the book (at least yet), though. We are introduced to solar evaporation, mining, and very briefly boiling methods of salt production. Does anyone know if there is any difference to the end product when we talk about solar evaporation vs. boiling? Solar evaporation seems to be used way more throughout history, is that just a function of not wanting to chop down every single tree for miles around and burn 'em all up for salt, or is there a taste/consistency/etc. difference to solar evaporated salt vs. boiled salt. And while we're at it, Kurlansky talks about the differences in grain of salt, how fine grain was preferred for actual table salt for the rich folks and coarse grain salt was the choice for salting fish/meat. Besides being amazingly labor intensive, is there any reason a coarse grain salt couldn't just be ground to be fine? Seems like you could add in an extra grinding step and suddenly be able to sell your cheap coarse salt as premium fine salt? (Sorry if these questions are answered later in the book -or- they are just amazingly stupid questions, I'm honestly curious about them) USMC_Karl fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 12, 2017 04:33
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ulmont posted:Kurlansky talks about this at pages 121-122. In general, solar evaporated salt (in addition to only being possible in some particular climates) is less pure. Where possible, though, solar evaporated salt is a lot easier to set up. Thanks! I actually finished reading that section today and thought to come back here and answer my own questions, but you beat me to it. I'll put the quote up here for any that are curious. page 122 posted:By "Bay salt," he meant solar-evaporated sea salt. ... There were better salts. Norther salts made from boiling peat and southern salts such as that of Setubal were far whiter, which meant purer. French bay salt ... was large-grained, inexpensive, and nearby [northern Europe]. Middle-class homes bought inexpensive bay salt, dissolved it back into brine, and boiled the brine over a fire until crystallized to make a finer salt ... On to another thing brought up in the book, sauerkraut! I've been living in South Korea for a long time and, while I never really thought of it, sauerkraut is pretty close to Korean white kimchi. The diagrams showing how to make choucroute (which, at least to me, sounds pretty much like sauerkraut) on page 152 even look pretty much like how one is supposed to salt cabbages before making "normal" kimchi or white kimchi. For those of you that haven't had it, white kimchi is just like what you picture kimchi as, just without pepper powder added to it. It's also generally served with a large portion of the juice that it is fermented in. As a kid, I never really dug sauerkraut all that much, but I know I love white kimchi now. Maybe I'll have to retry sauerkraut...
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Jun 13, 2017 07:52
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Chapter 14 and the whole section on the French salt tax is nutty. A law where, if you commit suicide, your body is salted and put on public display is just nutty. (This is a fun book)
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Jun 15, 2017 08:37
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:30 |
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Finished the book and boy was it a lot of fun. I'm sure there are times where the authors assertions on the importance of salt got a little out of proportion with actual history, but really how else could you write ~500 pages about salt and make it all more or less interesting? I definitely learned a bunch from this book and am glad that I finally took the plunge and decided to read it. The definite downside to the book is that I now have a crazy huge craving for some roast fish. I found the sections on the French salt tax and on the ACW to be the most interesting, personally, but maybe that's just because they were a little closer to modern day (and I really like Tabasco sauce). The section on the dead sea were also pretty cool, definitely made me want to put it on my list of places to visit someday. All in all, good choice Hieronymous Alloy!
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Jun 19, 2017 03:11
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