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<em>Salt, A World History</em> is an engaging book about the importance of salt. Before canning and refrigeration, salt-based methods were the only means of preserving food. Controlling the use of salt via taxation and by means of force was of great importance—one of Gandhi’s acts of civil disobedience was to go to the sea and harvest his own salt, which was illegal at that time. This is one of those books I think fantasy readers and writers will appreciate for the historical context, given that many fantasies are in preindustrial settings.

Cheese is one of the many foods born of ways of trying to keep food from spoiling in all of human history before the advent of refrigeration. A variety of microorganisms could “process” milk into cheese that imparted flavor, transformed the easily-spoiled liquid into a transportable solid, and retarded the growth of harmful bacteria. Lactic acid produced by the lactobacillus (in yogurt and some cheeses) is bad for other microorganisms, and a hefty dose of salt helps to preserve the cheese, too. The now solidified cow/goat/sheep juice could also be wrapped or even sealed in a wax coating, waxed paper, oil cloth, etc.

So cheese was very important. As were a great many salty foods. If a food is considered salty by today’s standards, chances are it used to be a great deal saltier before refrigeration. I recommend you read <em>Salt, A World History</em> by Mark Kurlansky.

This book really changed how I thought about the ancient world.

There's a really good book on the whole history of humans and salt if you're interested -

https://smile.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky-ebook/dp/B00BPDN33W/ref=sr\_1\_2

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Eh…maybe. But expressions like “worth his salt” has been around for a very long time. Our word salary comes from the notion that one’s wages were to be used to buy salt (as opposed to being paid in salt). citation

And certainly, even if salt was a rarity, the preservative and stable qualities of it would have been known to the Israelites.

Wikipedia has a brief history of salt. And the fuller Salt has been on my reading list for a long time.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BPDN33W/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1

Salt: A World History has tons of stories while being historical

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BPDN33W/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1

Aside from the salt.

Recommended reading: https://www.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky-ebook/dp/B00BPDN33W