Unintended Consequences

One of the great underlying themes of Salt is the idea of unintended consequences. In fact, Salt can be read as one long tale of unintended consequences. Throughout history different people, rulers, priests, inventors, have tried to do one thing have ended up doing something very different that they could not have expected. One key example is in the relationship between cod and salt. Fishermen were originally looking for another kind of fish when they found cod. Further, if they hadn't had the salt available, cod wouldn't have been as valuable a commodity as it became because there wouldn't be an effective way of preserving the cod. The Catholic Church made religious rules about avoiding meat on Friday and religious holidays that had the effect of increasing the demand for fish which thereby increased the demand for salt to preserve the fish. It was this original demand...