Pass the salt please

Salt, a seemingly ubiquitous entity, has somehow escaped our 200-mile edible radius.

After reading Salt: A World History (quite an informative if not incredibly dry read written by Mark Kurlansky author of Cod) a few years back, I learned that salt basically drove the trade routes of the ancient world and was practically worth its weight in gold. I guess this makes sense seeing as the mineral is essential to animal life (although usually quite detrimental to plants) and was the primary means of food preservation save the past 200 years. However, due to vast advances in industrial mining, salt went from being a hot commodity to a run of the mill commodity. Basically it went from gold to cheap and easy (to find).

So if salt is so abundant, where can we get some?

I have already received enough questioning looks and scoffing remarks in the grocery store asking about the origins of sprouts and rice but try asking someone if they have local salt. Not even Whole Foods and their fancy bulk salt bar with 8 different colors and sizes and entire shelf of exotic jars can help me pick out something they know for sure is even from the US.

After 5 minutes of google research I found that, of course, the great state of Texas is not to be without this precious mineral. We have both rock and brine production of salt and even our very own salt war. Numerous companies in numerous counties produce salt but much like the meat and grain industries one can never be certain as to the location of origin when the product has been shipped to different processing plants, mixing mills, distribution warehouses and finally to the dinner table where it boldly sits as the finishing touch/ saving grace to every home cooked meal.

For now, we are going almost completely without salt. The exception being locally made cheese (and I venture to guess the local meat that Sam got was cured with salt). I could already tell this was effecting me on day 1 when I tore out of school to get to the store as soon as possible to buy Parmesan style cheese. I don't like Parmesan but my body was telling me to eat a pound of it.

Other fun facts found in Mark Kurlansky's book:

The original ketchup actually resembled something similar to soy sauce with a variety of added ingredients. It was tomato ketchup that really took off in the UK and US.

The origin of "When it rains, it pours" refers to Morton's ad campaign marketing their salt that doesn't clump up especially when its humid outside due to a change in the crystal structure.