Perspective

The perspective of Salt is a "salt's eye view of history,' where the narrative of the book follows the use of and the search for salt rather than a traditional linear historical narrative that follows the events of world powers or the actions of kings. The author presents the story from the point of view, whenever possible, of the people at the time that he is discussing. There are many samples from period cookbooks giving recipes of salt related dishes or explaining the particular purpose or importance of a given dish at a given time. One great example of this is the discussion of the Roman condiment garum in early chapters. Historians have speculated about what garum exactly was and the author goes back to record from the time to try to give a sense of how the fish sauce was made and used. Whenever possible he...