Salt: Grain of Life

By Pierre Laszlo

Book Overview

For the sake of salt, Rome created a system of remuneration (from which we get the word salary), nomads domesticated the camel, the Low Countries revolted against their Spanish oppressors, and Gandhi marched against the British. Through the ages, salt has conferred status, preserved foods, and mingled in the blood, sweat, and tears of humankind. Today, chefs of haute cuisine covet its most exotic forms -- underground salt deposits, Hawaiian black lava salt, glittery African crystals, and pink Peruvian sea salt carried in bricks on the backs of Ilamas.From proverbs to technical arguments, from anecdotes to tales of folklore, chemist and philosopher Pierre Laszlo takes us through the kingdom of "white gold." With "enthusiasm and freshness" (Le Monde), he mixes literary analysis, history, anthropology, biology, physics, economics, art history, political science, chemistry, ethnology, and linguistics to create a full body of knowledge about the everyday substance that rocked the world and still brings zest to the ordinary.Salt is a tour de force about a substance that is one of the very foundations of civilization.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060084685
• ISBN13: 9780060084684
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Snarky

Oh those French. One gets the feeling that this book was never meant for reading. Not any type of reading. Not unless one derives pleasure from reading snarky comments that were penned by a man who has a superiority complex. Harrumph. One gets the feeling that the writer and his publisher were under the impression that simply owning this book is a privilege. Je me le demande parfois.

Not a kitchen bookshelf book !

Even if it's here as a cooking book it'snot one. The writer is a french scientist whose speciality is chemistry. The book deals with the history of salt through economy, epistemology, proverbs and everyday life.Very enjoyable.