Cheeeeeeese! Yum.

Cheese, cheese, oh wonderful cheese. I now know how you are made. Now that I have the lowdown on cheese, I feel much better. Not really, but I thought I should say that. I know all about aged cheese now. I really would like to be a cheese master now. Seriously, that is like the emperor of cheese. How awesome would that be? I would want free cheese. I like cheese, but not nearly so much that I would want to know all the details. The basic idea is interesting though.

So, I'm pretty sure that I'm never ever going to eat salami again (not that I do now). They made it seem like all the nasty parts of the pig were tossed into the salami. Erlack. I wonder which is worse...Salami or hot dogs. I think they might both be uber nasty. But I still eat hot dogs. Maybe there is still hope.

I am very proud of the advancements that pigs have made throughout this novel. They are delicious and loved now. I feel happy for them. They aren't reviled any more. Although, it may be a bad thing that people like them so very much now. They are getting eaten. That is unfortunate for them. Sorry piggies.

Now we are done with Salt. It is bittersweet. While I wasn't a fan of reading it, I did enjoy the strange salt facts. I will forever look for people's salt shakers on their tables and be wary if they didn't set them out. Good bye salttt.

A Discourse on Salt, Cadavers, and Pungent Sauces...What?

Okay, first off, I'm pretty sure I did not read anything interesting about cadavers. At all. Normally I remember the cool stuff. I think this chapter may have been falsely adverstised. There was lots on salt though (no surprise there). I guess pungent sauces were included, but it was mostly about salt.

There was a lot on Marco Polo in this chapter. I find it vair interesting that Marco Polo's story may all have been a heaping pile of lies. That is disappointing and I will never play that pool game the same way again. "Marco." "Falsehood." And boy, you sure cannot escape the Chinese, can you? Every chapter references them a whole bunch. Can't we reference the naked, fighting, red bearded Celts? They were awesome. As for Marco Polo, though, he is a lie. You know why? Because he didn't notice the bound feet of the Chinese princesses. Yup. True story.

Venice was a sort of crazy city. It was very salt obsessed. Although, I can't blame them. Everyone in this book is. Then again, if they weren't they probably wouldn't be useful for a book about salt. They were like the salt pimps. Literal pimps for salt. How odd.

That is all I really have to say about this chapter. And I am still disappointed about the lack of cadavers. Or my lack of noticing them, whichever it was. Happy salting.

Roman salt

Bahahahahahaha. If you didn't have your salt shaker out, it was grounds for suspicion. Wow. That is so odd. The next time I go to someone's house and they don't have the salt shaker out on the table, I will be uber offended. They are being unfriendly. It probably means that I'm getting poisoned.

I would be extremely disappointed if I was paid in salt. That's terrible. I don't care how good salt tastes, I DO NOT want paid in salt. How is that going to help anything? The Romans were somewhat silly about their salt. But not nearly as insane as the Chinese. Those guys were out of their minds.

The Romans had a mostly reasonable price for salt. Although they were not very kind to un-Romans who wanted salt. I'm glad that they are not like that any more. Perhaps if I ever go to Rome, I will take my own salt. Just to prove a point, of course.

I'm glad that nobody is prejudiced against pig farmers anymore. Embrace the ham.

The Celts and salt

So, as I was reading other people's blogs, they didn't seem to like this chapter. I did, though. I found it to be weirdly good. Seriously, the Celts went naked into war. Hahahahaha, could you imagine that? I think that it would lessen their scariness. That is not boring at all. The Celts were insane. They bleached their skin! What the heck?!

Unlike the Egpytians, they loved their ham. Piggies were fantastic. Hooray for the Celts! And they didn't even have to try to be awesome like the Egpytians. They accidentally preserved their dead freakishly well. Granted, I don't think those people really wanted to die in that manner, but still! They were preserved nonetheless!

How about the bright colors? Could you imagine that? Their violently white skin and crazy, messy hair with obnoxiously bright clothes. I bet those colors completely washed them out. Then again, I think that's the look they were going for. If I was a Celt, I think I would have wanted to be preserved in bright clothes. People would think I was upbeat and fun.

SALT! PRESERVE ME IN SALT!

ATTENTION ALL BLOGGERS!

Seriously guys, c'mon. Have some decency. Don't be replanting my ugly plant. I've been patiently waiting for it to have its hideous flowers blossom and then some clown goes and replants the thing. Don't you want to see the ugly plant grow up?

I find this very upsetting. If I hear of anyone replanting Antonio, I will be very, very unhappy. So just don't do it. Please.

Pinky promise?

Oh. And thanks to Brianna Rob for pointing out my spelling/grammatical error.

But still, don't be replanting my ugly plant.

....And that means you, Ginger

saltsaltsaltsaltsalt

So chapter two of Salt has proved to be much more enjoyable than chapter one. I was actually interested in what the Egyptians did with salt. The Chinese's big thing was soy sauce. The Egyptians preserved dead people. Way cooler! And was it just me, or was it hilarious that they sometimes traded slaves (people) for salt (condiment)? Salt was a whole lot cooler in this chapter. They did some pretty crazy stuff with it.



Okay, I want to point out something here. Some people were under the impression that there was an entire city made of salt. Some guy whose name I can't remember said so. Wouldn't the city melt over time? I mean, if you put salt in water, the salt doesn't really stay solid. It makes a solution (salt water). So wouldn't that mean that the salt would dissolve away over time? It would really suck if you were just hanging out at home, having dinner with the fam, and then all of sudden a torrential downpour of rain made your house dissolve. That's a bad day right there.



This part isn't that related to the salt aspect of Salt, but isn't it uber cool that camels were originally from North America? We had wild camels running around over here. I wish we still did. How awesome would it be to see a camel running across the road? Have you ever seen those things run? If not, you should probably watch Animal Planet more. They are hilarious. Imagine getting upset because a camel got into your garbage can. Bahahaha. They carried lots of salt back in the Egyptian times. They were a much more convenient animal for desert travel, I must say.



Things I Learned You Can Do With Salt Within the Last Week:

1. Pickle vegetables to keep until you get married

2. Preserve dead things (animals, people, organs, etc.)
3. Soy sauce
4. NOT SALT your rice (pretty much blasphemy to salt it)
5. Tax people for it
6. Trade slaves (or friends, family, etc.)
7. Make other awesome discoveries that changed the world

So, in conclusion, salt is the Chuck Norris of condiments :D

SALT!!!!

So, uh, yeah. I didn't think this book was literally about salt. I was wrong. It actually is about salt. I think that I'm now pretty well versed on the discovery and uses of salt in the Chinese culture. It is rather alarming how big of an effect salt had on that country, though. Today we don't view salt as anything other than a seasoning that sits on our table every night and gives us high-blood pressure when we coat our fatty french fries in it. Back in the day (ie. hundreds of years ago in ancient China), salt was very important. It also pwn'd slice bread in the face (yeah, I know they didn't have sliced bread back then, but you get the point).
I have to say that I wasn't particularly into the book, though. I'm not a big fan of Chinese culture. At all. I was so excited when I finished The Joy Luck Club in English last week because I thought, "Hey, no more reading about the Chinese!" Then we get Salt. I was so unsuspecting, innocently starting to read the first chapter. It was a slap in the face. I guess if you want to be more accurate, and cute and clever with a pun, it was the equivalent of salt in a wound. Talk about a opening a lot of pun doors. Salt has a lot of sayings, probably because it was so important.
It is so strange to think that something as simple as salt had such a big effect on a culture. It opened moral dilemmas and major political issues. Are we talking about the same thing that I carelessly tossed on my baked potato last night? Back then, salt was HUGE. It was the Angelina Jolie of seasonings/condiments. These delightful, white granules caused major rifts in China. It is so hard to imagine that salt was so important to the Chinese. Or that it seemed like such a discovery to them. Today we go buy it by the pounds in Giant Eagle. Salt...Changing the world one fry at a time!