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lambsears's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this seriously well researched look at this vital commodity. I had no idea of the extent to which the need for this condiment had shaped world history. We take this cheap necessity for granted and as a child of a wide, brown land which is surrounded by salt and blessed with plenty of sunshine to make gathering it a relatively simple affair, it had never occurred to me that other countries wouldn't get theirs in much the same way. In the light of this, the facts about salt mining came as something of a surprise to me and sent me scurrying to Google looking for images of salt mines.
Kurlansky writes engagingly and authoritatively and how he managed to fit most of civilised history into just one book is impressive. A must-read for any serious foodie.
Kurlansky writes engagingly and authoritatively and how he managed to fit most of civilised history into just one book is impressive. A must-read for any serious foodie.
briandbremer's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.25
The book alternates between interesting information about salt manufacturing and incredibly dull historical anecdotes about the same. Depending on the chapter, it's a four-star book or a two-star.
It would have been better if the author hadn't insisted on inserting recipes into the historical narratives.
It would have been better if the author hadn't insisted on inserting recipes into the historical narratives.
cutsajack's review against another edition
5.0
Wow! What a surprise this one is. :)
At the beginning of this one I felt it was a good read, but as I got further, and further into it, I realized it’s an incredible, well-crafted history text. I’ll definitely recommend this one to fellow readers!
Happy Reading, everybody!
At the beginning of this one I felt it was a good read, but as I got further, and further into it, I realized it’s an incredible, well-crafted history text. I’ll definitely recommend this one to fellow readers!
Happy Reading, everybody!
sardobi's review against another edition
2.0
There's probably 150 pages of interesting salt history which some brutal editing could bring out of this 450(!) page book.
The book is nominally in three parts, and its best moments are at the start of the third, about the salt industry in decline. That's probably because it's about _something_, rather than being a succession of numbing minutiae about the specifics of salt production in some place or other. I wish the earlier parts of the book were more organised, arranged according to the genuinely interesting themes you see crop up in several of those places - the basic essentialness of salt, the way it has been used as a means of control by governments and colonisers, and the cultural importance attached to it by those who depended on it. But as it stands, the book is a real slog.
The book is nominally in three parts, and its best moments are at the start of the third, about the salt industry in decline. That's probably because it's about _something_, rather than being a succession of numbing minutiae about the specifics of salt production in some place or other. I wish the earlier parts of the book were more organised, arranged according to the genuinely interesting themes you see crop up in several of those places - the basic essentialness of salt, the way it has been used as a means of control by governments and colonisers, and the cultural importance attached to it by those who depended on it. But as it stands, the book is a real slog.
alavda_isere's review against another edition
3.0
There is a pretty bad major factual error in the book: Kurlansky makes the claim that Breton, the Celtic language spoken in Brittany, was descended from the language of the Gauls. In fact, Welsh speakers came there in the early Middle Ages, a fact that is reflected in the name of the region and easily verified by the historical record. If he missed this, what else is grossly incorrect?