Salt: Grain of Life (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History)

Mary Beth Mader Pierre Laszlo

ISBN 10: 0231121989 / ISBN 13: 9780231121989

Published by Columbia University Press, 2001

About this Item

pp. xxv + 193 Edition.

Seller Inventory # 26689737

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Salt: Grain of Life (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231121989
• ISBN 13: 9780231121989
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

For the sake of salt, Rome created a system of remuneration (from which we get the word "salary"), nomads domesticated the camel, the Low Countries revolted against their Spanish oppressors, and Gandhi marched against the tyranny of the British. Through the ages, salt has conferred status, preserved foods, and mingled in the blood, sweat, and tears of humanity. Today, chefs of haute cuisine covet it in its most exotic forms―underground salt deposits, Hawaiian black lava salt, glittery African crystals, and pink Peruvian salt from the sea carried in bricks on the backs of llamas.

From proverbs to technical arguments, from anecdotes to examples of folklore, chemist and philosopher Pierre Laszlo takes us through the kingdom of "white gold." With "enthusiasm and freshness" (Le Monde) he mixes literary analysis, history, anthropology, biology, physics, economics, art history, political science, chemistry, ethnology, and linguistics to create a full body of knowledge about the everyday substance that rocked the world and brings zest to the ordinary. Laszlo explains the history behind Morton Salt's slogan "When it rains, it pours!" and looks into the plight of the salt miner, as well as spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance. Salt is a tour de force about a chemical compound that is one of the very foundations of civilization.

About the Author

Pierre Laszlo is an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Liège, Belgium, and the École polytechnique near Paris, France. Of his many published works six have been translated into English, including Organic Reactions: Logic and Simplicity and Organic Chemistry Using Clays.