January 11th: Salt

Salt was celebrated on this date in the French Revolutionary calendar. Salt, or to give it its chemical name, sodium chloride (NaCl) is one of the basic human tastes along with sweet, sour and bitter, and is essential to life. Here are ten things you might not know about that stuff you sprinkle on your food.

1. The reason it's so important? It regulates the water content of the body. Every cell of your body has salt in it; the average human adult body contains about 250 grammes of the stuff. If you drink too much Water it can flush salt out of the system and cause Hyponatremia, which can be fatal.
2. Too much salt is equally bad. That can kill you too. A fatal dose is one gram per kilo of body weight. In China, consumption of a fatal dose of salt was a method of ritual suicide - mainly among the nobility as salt was very expensive. In the Middle Ages, salt was so expensive it was sometimes referred to as “white gold”.
3. Everyone's heard the story that Roman soldiers were paid in salt and that was the origin of the word "salary". However, in researching this post I discovered that may not actually be true. They were paid in Money, but would use it to buy salt. Another theory is that a fair number of Roman soldiers were engaged in protecting the Via Salarium, or Salt Road, which was the first major Roman Road. It led from Rome to the Adriatic Sea, which was a source of vital salt for the city. Salary isn't the only word to come from salt. The Romans used to season green vegetables with salt and hence we got the word "salad". "Salacious" comes from a Roman expression, "salax" meaning "salted" for people in love.
4. The expression "to take something with a pinch of salt" refers to a Roman recipe to neutralise poisons. The recipe consisted of two dried Walnuts, two figs and twenty leaves of rue pounded together, with a grain of salt. Consuming this mixture before anything else would protect you from poisons for the whole day.
5. Place names are often derived from the fact that salt production occurred nearby. Places with names ending in wick or wich, meaning marsh, for example. You can find water in Droitwich Spa which is saltier than any water on the planet aside from the Dead Sea. The Greek word for salt was halos so places with names beginning with Hal or Hall were probably salt producers - Hallein and Hallstatt, for example, and also Hayling Island in the UK. The Germanic word was Salz - as in Salzburg.
6. Why is it unlucky to spill salt? There are a number of possible explanations. One is that it's because Judas spilled the salt at the Last Supper (Look closely at Leonardo da Vinci's painting and you'll see a salt cellar on its side with salt spilling out, next to Judas). Although it's possible the superstition already existed in Leonardo's time and he included the spilled salt as part of the symbolism. Salt was expensive, as we've heard; spilling anything costly is associated with loss and bad luck. Salt spilled on soil might make it barren, and it's even something people might do to curse their enemies. Spilling the salt has become associated with the work of the Devil. This is the reason people throw spilled salt over their left shoulder - because the devil is on your left and throwing it to that side might blind him.
7. Salt was believed to ward off evil spirits generally. In old Japanese theatres, salt was sprinkled on to the stage before each performance to prevent evil spirits from casting a spell on the actors; in Quebec, people would scatter salt around the doors to their stables to protect the Horses from Fairies and goblins. The recipe and ritual for making holy water includes salt; salt was at one time placed in a baby's mouth during baptism; and it was common in Scotland to place a salt container on top of the family Bible. There was an associated belief that Witches would eat meals without salt.
8. Bars of salt (called amoleh) were used as currency in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) as recently as the 20th century. Fans of nominative determinism might like to know that the author of an 1814 book called A Voyage to Abyssinia was called Henry Salt.
9. There is a salt flat in Bolivia which is 4,000 square miles in area. In certain conditions, when a thin layer of water covers it, Salar de Uyuni turns into a giant mirror which can be used to calibrate scientific equipment from space. It also contains half the world’s supply of lithium. Bolivia's answer to the ice hotels in Scandinavia is therefore a hotel made entirely of salt, including the furniture.
10. Only about 6% of the salt produced in the world is used as food. The rest is used for industrial processes, conditioning water and salting roads in winter. It is also added to aviation fuel after purification to remove any remaining traces of water.

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Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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