Gag...Cheese

I liked the pictures in this chapter the most. I thought it was very interesting how they made a human hamster wheel for prisoners to mix the brine. it looks like they are being hhung but whatever keeps the brine from getting gross.

I never knew the difference between fresh cheese and aged cheese is salt. I dont really eat cheese because it is the most disgusting thing in the world. Its all gooing and smelly so I just avoid it most of the time.

I'm suprised the Chinese did not claim the invention of salt, becasue no one knows where it comes from. Brine prevents the cheese to spoil I guess, but salty cheese seems really gross.

Butter was next in line to cheese. I like butter more than cheese but i would never eat butter by itself because that is just disgusting. My sister used to do that and it made me gag. Butter was rare and hard to come by back in the day.

Although I'm not a fan of cheese, I am a fan of the Cheese Master. He probed the delicious cheese with his "knowing fingers" and found out if the cheese was good or not. He must have had some talented hands.

Marcooo....Polooo

Through the centuries of trying to figure out how to get salt out of water, they finially refined it. They used individual ponds and let the sun evaporate it so they wouldnt have to wait for larger ponds to dry out. They also used pumps to go from pond to pond. First they pumped water into the pond, let it dry some and then the brine becomes denser. It is moved to another pond which it will evaporate more until all that is left is salt.

The Chinese did not claim to use this process because this made coarse salt when they liked finely grained salt. Historians said the chinese thought of this process but they denied ever using ponds that made course salt.

Venice people paid a ton for their salt...but they did not know any better I guess. Venice ruled the spice trade of the world so they charged a ridiculous amount for salt.

Then something happened with Marco Polo. I'm not really sure what was happening this chapter but whatev

It smells like fish.

Random fact number one: soldiers were paid with salt..which is were we get salary and sal became the french word solde and then out of all that came soldier. thats pretty random

Random fact number two: romans salted there greens and somewhere out of that they got salad..I'm not to sure how but salt created soldiers and salad

Random fact number three: to see if brine was salty enough, they saw if eggs or potatoes would float on it...that would have to be pretty salty.

Well after I learned all these brilliant random facts I started reading about fish. Fish, in my opinion, is very disgusting and smelly. First there was the salt trade and now the fish trade. I lost interest in this chapter pretty quickly.

I'm not sure how the purple dye thing works or why it made them rich. I guess they didnt know how to dye clothes? But if the stupid celts could do it I dont know why the intelligent Romans couldnt.

Are we almost done reading this book of nonsense?!?!?!?!?!

Celts are lame

So we learned a bit about the Celts and no one liked them...but they called them "hals" which means salt. But salt is like gold so I dont know why they would call them salt...unless they are talking about the bad aspects of salt.

I guess they werent too smart since about 1,000 Celts died because they all got trapped in the mines. So far this chapter is not really about salt..but the results of trying to get to it...which isnt as bad as reading about how salt is used to make Celts style of soy sauce.

Marco Polo!!!! I did not know that his road and the Silk Road were the same thing...thats pretty cool.

Well the Celts did something right by inventing leg of pig and eating ham. It does not make sense to call a god a pig but they werent the smartest people so i let it slide.

This chapter was pretty lame...I thought it was the worst so far...I couldnt even make fun of salt since it was hardly in there. But I did learn a new recipe, woohoo.

SALT. its whats for breakfast.

Those egyptians discrimminated against the poor people. But the poor people did remind me of chicora since all the eat are onions, beer, and hard bread. Although, the onions were placed in their eyes since they are a symbol of the universe...thats pretty out there.

Then the egyptians stole the soy sauce idea off china..but they used fish guts in vinegar. Then they decided to preserve meat in salt..which, in my opinion, is a little bit cooler than putting veggies in brine and pickling. So they were just about to domesticate the pig and then all the sudden they desided that pigs are nasty. The egyptians do not get credit for discovering ham now. Egypt is looking more and more like chicora now that people with pigs are outkasts. They said they would eat any kind of animal they could find, including an ibex.......what the heck is an ibex?!?!?

They would make olive oil, but they werent too good at it...and then they soaked the fruit in brine and BAM out popped an olive I guess. I never knew egypt was known for their culinary arts but they sure are. After the olives, they invented raised bread opposed to unraised bread which the poor people ate. Rich people got raised bread in all different shapes and tastes. Poor poeple were not worthy of a pinch of salt in their bread either.

Egypt opened a whole new door when it comes to taxing salt. If that item had a pinch of salt in it, it was taxed insanely. Instead of just exporting salt, they exported foods in salt which meant it would stay fresh longers..and they taxed the people a ton of money for it.

The camel was native to north america!!!! Thats the greatest thing in the world. but anyway big bad camels replaced the wimpy horses and fat oxen to carry the valued salt across the desert. But seriously could you imagine seeing a camel in your back yard eating whatever camels eat?! When i read this i was so excited that us americans had something to do with salt and camels!!!

The camels were pretty strong to carry two 200 lb blocks of salt at one time. I dont think living in a house made a salt would be very safe. What if it would rain?..bye bye house. I bet you would have dry skin too since salt absorbs moisture, and chapped lips.

Soooo basically what I got from this chapter is that
a) mummies and fish/meat were preserved in salt
b) there are alot of different types of salts...(iodized isnt natural either so dont get too excited)
c) camels came from north america and did work in egypt.

Nothing important

This has nothing to do with salt. But i will blog anyway since its the new cool things to do. I'm pretty exciting to read chapter two since megan said it was about camels. I like camels alot...i bet you didnt know they spit. Atleast chapter two is about eygpt and camels and my fav. salt. Well I'm going to go now since this is pretty pointless..and Im using well and since way to much for my liking. Bye..
p.s fix yourself girl you got a camel toe

Salttttttt-chapter oneeee

Well the Chinese are pretty proud of their salt, so much so they think they are the only ones who "invented" it.
They used salt for many things, such as soy sauce. It's pronounced differently in the western world but its all the same. If I am ever lost in a desert, I'll make sure I have soy, salt, and water because I can live longer with the goodness of soy and salt.
I'm just a bit confused about pickling and salting rice. You are NEVER suppose to salt your rice, big no no, but you pickle the vegetables in salt and then put the salted vegetables on the rice. So technically they were salting the rice?!? But they were inovators. I wish I could have an egg for 200 days and only have it turn a little green and smell disgusting, but atleast it would still be edible..Yum.
I guess inventing the dam is pretty cool. He must have been a smart chinese man to make a dam and then later created the first brine well. I always thought too much brine and salt was bad for you, but I guess I was wrong. But anyway, I think they used their nature resources to help with the transportation of salt. I never knew bamboo would not rot when salt was run through it. Then out of no where, they invented chinese powder which is actually gun powder. But the Arabs stole that idea.
Salt started the first monopoly..that's pretty hardcore. They kept raising the price of salt and put tax on it. Then that caused the price of iron to go up since salt is in iron. After they war from the huns, the monopolies were put back into effect. Yay monopolies.
Well uh. As you can probably tell I thought this first chapter was a treat. I did not think it would actually be about salt. I don't care how salt was found and used, sorry chineses. Salt is in everything, this I know. If all the chapters are like this I will probably burn the book. I just do not get it at all. It was not even about on specific event. I'm dreading reading the rest of this book. I think we should have read a book about sugar. I care more about sugar than salt because salt causes heart attacks and strokes.

I did NOT like this chapter at all. Blog ya next time. :)

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