Paige Simard’s Reviews > Salt: A World History > Status Update

Ahhh now we see the shortcuts in trade and economics. Venetians found out buying and selling salt was more profitable than actually producing it, so the government paid merchants a subsidy. However this meant the public paid crazyyyy prices for salt. But apparently they didn’t mind if it meant they dominated the spice trade & led the grain trade

The phrase “to sail the seven seas” was in reference to sailing through the Seven Seas—the area between the islands that are now the city of Venice and the Italian mainland. This was considered a rough feat because you’d have to navigate past the sandbars along the 25 mile route

Huh, apparently Venice is the one Italian city that was not a part of Roman history… I wonder why

After the fall of Rome in the fifth century, garum was left behind culinarily from “less extravagant cultures”… shocker. I myself would be hesitant to eat fermented fish sauce, which has been stated in this book to be borderline rotted fish. But sardines were actually favored in place of garum, “Sardines: in their natural state they should be fried…” OKAYYY

Leave it to the French to judge anyone for anything. “The French, when they first encountered this sauce, apparently forgetting their own Latin heritage, were horrified that the Vietnamese are ‘rotten fish.’ “

“… the most famous fish throughout the Mediterranean was the salted bluefin tuna.” Oh we’d get along so well

“In fact, since salt symbolized the binding of an agreement, the absence of a saltcellar on a banquet table would have been interpreted as an unfriendly act and reason for suspicion.” In terms of Roman activity

Wooow the Romans out here stealing everyone’s saltworks AND novel inventions, why am I not surprised

“The Celts were innovators. The Romans were nation builders.” dangg the Romans stole a lot of Celtic culture after they destroyed most of their towns and villages—like their salt mines and cure hams

Not the Celts starting the long standing Western Thanksgiving tradition of salt cured ham.. at least I think it’s a holiday tradition—ham