Salt Flats in Malta. (This is more interesting than you think…)

Salt Pans, Bugibba

Okay, so I realise that for the non-geologist/historians among you, this may qualify as one of the dullest articles around.  So for that reason, I am spicing (pun absolutely intended) things up with a Fantastic Five Facts About Salt!

Fact 1:  The word Salad comes from Salted, because Romans used to sprinkle the stuff over lettuce before eating it.  Salads were less healthy at that time, although I can see that as something McDonalds might be interested in.

Star Trek salt monster

Fact 2:  The very first episode of Star Trek ever shown featured a shape-shifting alien who wanders about the ‘Enterprise’ killing people so as to suck all the salt out of their bodies.  Since then, the Star Trek franchise has proceeded to suck millions and billions of dollars from easily pleased members of the public over dozens of years.

Fact 3:  Salt was once worth more than gold.  Possibly.  Prior to refrigeration, packing your dead cow in salt kept it edible for much longer than just sticking it down in the basement, and thus salt became a very valuable commodity.  People have been using salt since at least 6000 BC, so this is not new information.

Fact 4:  Salt provides us with many common phrases, such as ‘rubbing salt in the wound’ and ‘take something with a pinch of salt’.  Also some less common phrases such as to ‘have something hung up and salted’, which apparently means to know everything about something.  Or the (almost never) cheerily uttered ‘Back to the salt mines!’ when heading off to the office.  The bible gave us ‘salt of the earth’ to describe a decent fellow, although the relevant phrase comes across as a bit ranty to me: Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Salting the earth is an entirely different thing however, meaning to kill the land so that no new crops can be grown. I cannot envisage a situation whereby I would be engaged in this activity, but who knows?

Fact 5: Japanese comedy sport Sumo Wrestling features a number of rituals, prior to a contest in which one morbidly obese man in a nappy-thong pushes another out of a designated area.  One of said rituals involves throwing salt in the air so as to purify the ring and appease Shinto Gods at the same time.  Does it work?  Scientists are undecided.

Non-Fact:  Roman soldiers did not get paid in salt, although they probably used the money they did get paid to buy some salt.  Hence ‘salary’.  And also ‘soldier’, while we’re at it.