Speaker 1: I eat so much salt, and then I read that
Speaker 1: the US dietary guidelines is that no one should eat
Speaker 1: more than twenty three hundred milligrams a day. That's a teaspoon,
Speaker 1: that's a tea. We shouldn't have more than a teaspoon
Speaker 1: of salt today. I don't even want to tell you
Speaker 1: how much salt I ow.
Speaker 2: When I learned that, it's like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 2: probably have ten times.
Speaker 1: That today's episode is about probably my favorite ingredient. It's
Speaker 1: about salt, and it's so fitting because we're also celebrating
Speaker 1: my favorite holiday, which is Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3: My name is Evil Longoria and I am my teon
Speaker 3: and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
Speaker 3: our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
Speaker 3: talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
Speaker 3: and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 1: So make yourself at home. Eve when brochel, When was
Speaker 1: salt first used? Or who invented it? Or who discovered it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Where did it come from?
Speaker 4: Well, salt is.
Speaker 2: Everywhere, right, but the earliest evidence of salt processing dates
Speaker 2: to about six thousand BC, right, so over eight thousand
Speaker 2: years ago to present day China.
Speaker 4: And Romania.
Speaker 2: It was prized, you know, for centuries, prized by the
Speaker 2: ancient Greeks and Romans and Egyptians and Indians. So it
Speaker 2: has always been a super important article of trade across
Speaker 2: the Mediterranean, across the Sahara on salt roads. Oh look
Speaker 2: at you, Look what I have here. I forgot to
Speaker 2: put a little lime wedge.
Speaker 1: I don't like salted rims on my margarita. Even though
Speaker 1: I'm a salt atic, you don't. I don't like assalted rim.
Speaker 1: I like a dagene rim how which is almost the
Speaker 1: same with a lot of salt intahen. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not a fan of salted rims. But I did it today.
Speaker 4: Oh I love the salted riom, the salt episode.
Speaker 2: What I have, I don't know if you could tell
Speaker 2: I made a cranberry cranberry margarita an honor of.
Speaker 1: That is beautiful. I made watermelon yesterday because I had
Speaker 1: some leftover. That sounds really like four little slice of watermelon.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, this gouls for margarita. My girlf
Speaker 1: was like what I was like, yeah, yeah, anytime there's
Speaker 1: like a little fruit anything.
Speaker 2: I do like the salt room because it balances off
Speaker 2: the sourness and the sweetness in them.
Speaker 1: What did you How did you make your margarita? I
Speaker 1: need to check on your margarita.
Speaker 2: I followed your lead. I didn't use any triple sack.
Speaker 2: I just used a little bit. I used a little
Speaker 2: bit of of the cranberry juice.
Speaker 4: A gove a gove.
Speaker 2: I got some of gave because I always use simple syrup.
Speaker 2: But I got some of govey for you. I got
Speaker 2: it for you. Tons of lime juice and then just
Speaker 2: a little, just a little splash of thickila.
Speaker 4: Because it's nine thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: Hey love it. They're just bad. I had to do
Speaker 1: a little it like that's splash. No, it's it's six
Speaker 1: thirty for me here in Spain, so it's like definitely
Speaker 1: past wine o'clock. Are you superstitious about salt as well
Speaker 1: on the table?
Speaker 4: I am like you, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yes, if somebody drops it, you gotta throw it over
Speaker 1: your shoulder. I also, I don't take it from somebody
Speaker 1: to have to put it down and then I pick
Speaker 1: it up. Do you do that one?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely always, And it has to be
Speaker 2: the left shoulder, yes, right, because they say that the
Speaker 2: devil sits on your left shoulder and you blind him
Speaker 2: with the clock.
Speaker 1: He's right here. The devil's right here, and you blind
Speaker 1: him with the salt. That's what it is. That's what
Speaker 1: I go.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And in Spanish, when somebody says that somebody is salavo,
Speaker 2: you know, it means that they have bad luck, like, oh,
Speaker 2: there's a lal I have, you know, bad luck.
Speaker 1: But oh, I didn't know that. I thought that meant
Speaker 1: that they were like malaumba, like they were like not cool.
Speaker 4: No, theyre's salala there they're bad.
Speaker 2: But in English, if somebody is salty, then they're like
Speaker 2: unreasonably like angry or bitter or whatever, so it kind
Speaker 2: of is like they're not cool.
Speaker 1: Who was the first to produce salt as like a product?
Speaker 2: Eight thousand years ago in ancient China Romania, they were
Speaker 2: producing salt.
Speaker 4: But the Chinese were the very first.
Speaker 2: To build a salt empire, and only the government was
Speaker 2: allowed to produce salt and to sell salt, and they
Speaker 2: enforced the salt tax. They were the first, you know,
Speaker 2: of many cultures to do this, and actually it brought
Speaker 2: so much wealth that salt paid for the Great Wall
Speaker 2: of China in the third century BC. I wanted to
Speaker 2: mention also we mentioned the salt fat, acid heat, which
Speaker 2: is a great resource. But there's also this book which
Speaker 2: is one of my favorites. It's called Salt, a World
Speaker 2: History by Mark Kurlanski, and he goes into detail for
Speaker 2: nerds like me, and I know that you would love
Speaker 2: this too.
Speaker 1: Eva.
Speaker 2: He goes into salt as it is in everything, just
Speaker 2: how important it has been.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know, well, it's yeah, that's my point.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it was like such a commodity in trade,
Speaker 1: and how ancient Romans were paid in salt because it
Speaker 1: was so valuable. And that that's where the word salary
Speaker 1: comes from. Salent salary, isn't that Corey, It's super crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: And Emperor Augustus he when he was wanted to gain
Speaker 2: public support for a war, he distributed free salt right,
Speaker 2: so it was this campaign tool. Even our word salad
Speaker 2: comes from the Latin word in salata or like in Salada,
Speaker 2: which means in salt.
Speaker 4: Even words like salvation.
Speaker 2: You know, in the Old and New Testaments, covenants were
Speaker 2: sealed with salt and was used also in the Catholic
Speaker 2: church was used.
Speaker 4: For purification rituals.
Speaker 2: It has been such an important tool in history.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere hungry for history, will be right back
Speaker 1: after the break. Well, you know, when I did searching
Speaker 1: for Mexico, we went to the salt beds in Medida
Speaker 1: or in the Yucatan, and I just learned so much
Speaker 1: about the history of salt in Mexico and how it's
Speaker 1: really intertwined with the culture, with the economy, and obviously
Speaker 1: with the culinary development over a millennia. Indigenous cultures, like
Speaker 1: like ancient Mayans, assault was a daily ingredient because they
Speaker 1: would salt their fish and they would use it in
Speaker 1: leather tanning, they would use it in ritual activities, and
Speaker 1: so I know, like in the Mayan area thought was
Speaker 1: really important for them, and then in the market and
Speaker 1: the trade market because you know, they were in the Yucatan.
Speaker 1: And so for me, I was like, oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, like, of course salt be preserving the fish
Speaker 1: because there was no refrigerators or ice or things like that,
Speaker 1: but also like in leather tanning and in medicine like
Speaker 1: what how like they used salt alive. It was very
Speaker 1: important in Mexico.
Speaker 4: Very important. It's still very important in Mexico, right.
Speaker 2: And what I find so interesting it's like taxing, you know, salts,
Speaker 2: but salt is everywhere, right. But yeah, the main source
Speaker 2: in source of salt and meso America was the selflex
Speaker 2: that you that you visited in you got done, and
Speaker 2: they obtained the salt through this solar evaporation of waters
Speaker 2: in this large like pool system.
Speaker 4: And they're also have salt flats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to some stonis.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, it's so beautiful, is it? Where that's pink?
Speaker 1: Beautiful?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 1: It's pink because in the water is this little it's
Speaker 1: almost like a cousin of the shrimp. It's a little crustacean.
Speaker 1: It's like a little beechel in the water. And that's
Speaker 1: where flamingos come and termink because they the water and
Speaker 1: eat those fish. And that's why. And so there's so
Speaker 1: sella stone. So it was the floor dessal in merried
Speaker 1: and the Yucatan. Sorry, And that's why that salt is
Speaker 1: pink is because of that little organism in the water
Speaker 1: that's pink.
Speaker 4: So cool, isn't nature just incredible?
Speaker 2: In the sixteenth century with the colonizers, there was one
Speaker 2: that went to the Yugatan, Diego Landa who did some horrible,
Speaker 2: horrible things. In his book The Relationship Things of Yukatan,
Speaker 2: he wrote about these salt flats in Yukatan.
Speaker 4: That were worthy of memory.
Speaker 2: He said that they were more than seventy leagues long,
Speaker 2: and it's all sailine God has created. They're the best
Speaker 2: salt that I have ever seen in my life. He
Speaker 2: talks about how they the Indians used to have a
Speaker 2: custom of going to get salt, a lot of salt
Speaker 2: and take it to Mexico on the wood As and Avana.
Speaker 2: So he's talking about this trade of salts.
Speaker 1: The Essex also had a sophisticated system of salt production
Speaker 1: and how they obtained salt from salt lakes and marshes
Speaker 1: around Lake Texcoco which is now Mexico City, which where
Speaker 1: the Notchichlan was right and so in and in other
Speaker 1: parts of the empire. And so the aste goddess of fertility,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how do you say this name? Watam,
Speaker 1: the fertility goddess was the one who presided over salt
Speaker 1: and salt water, and today is Mexico one of the
Speaker 1: largest producers of salt is the significant producer of salt
Speaker 1: because it has all these extensive salt flats and evaporation ponds.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes, significant producers states like Baja California, Guerrero, and
Speaker 2: it's a major industry in Mexico. They import salt, you know,
Speaker 2: to various countries around the world.
Speaker 4: I think the one in Guerrero is like a huge,
Speaker 4: huge one.
Speaker 1: So what is salt? Where does it come from?
Speaker 4: So salt, it's a mineral, the mineral.
Speaker 2: Yes, So it's a mineral, sodium chloride essential to life
Speaker 2: and we can't live.
Speaker 4: Without it, right, We've talked about we can't.
Speaker 2: We need it to maintain our broad pressure, to distribute
Speaker 2: water in the body, to deliver nutrients from salt from
Speaker 2: cells for muscle movement, and so we need so a
Speaker 2: healthy adult body contains about two hundred and fifty grams
Speaker 2: of salt, which is the equivalent of three salt shakers.
Speaker 1: So, unlike pepper, which is a spice, when food is salted,
Speaker 1: it goes like I said, it undergoes this like chemical
Speaker 1: reaction that literally changes texture and not just like oh
Speaker 1: it tastes saltier or has you know, more of a punch.
Speaker 1: It literally has a chemical reaction when you salt things.
Speaker 1: And I've learned that through that. You know, our favorite
Speaker 1: book Salt Fat, Acid Heat Heat. I always get it wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get the order wrong as well. But yeah,
Speaker 2: isn't that cool. I think that's so cool that it's
Speaker 2: because we use it as a spice soften, right, it's
Speaker 2: in our pantry like a spice, But it's not.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a mineral.
Speaker 2: And it's probably the only thing in our pantry that
Speaker 2: that is a mineral.
Speaker 4: And only eight.
Speaker 2: Percent of salt production is used for culinary purposest that crazy.
Speaker 2: Most of it is used for cleaning roads, like for
Speaker 2: salting roads when you know when it's whatever, snowing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the ice and the ice yeah.
Speaker 4: For soaps, for aromatherapy.
Speaker 1: And all salt comes from the ocean.
Speaker 4: All salt comes from the ocean.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, when I saw when I saw our favorite
Speaker 1: book Salt that acid Heat, I saw the Netflix documentary
Speaker 1: series and I saw the salt episode, and how you know,
Speaker 1: I think she was I think she did the salt
Speaker 1: episode in Japan and how all salt comes from the ocean.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of different types of salt, and
Speaker 1: I think you know, there's been so many opinions on
Speaker 1: which salt you could you should cook with, which salt
Speaker 1: you should finish with, which salt you know you should
Speaker 1: cook with, bake with, Like, there's a lot of different salts.
Speaker 1: So table salt is it's what's found in salt shakers everywhere.
Speaker 1: That's the mass produced. It's refined, it's small, it's tiny,
Speaker 1: it's very salty. It's probably my least favorite salt. What
Speaker 1: I don't understand is why they added iodide.
Speaker 2: They added iodine in the nineteen twenties because there was
Speaker 2: an iodine deficiency and it was a common health problem.
Speaker 2: So nineteen twenty four Moreton Salt Company they started adding
Speaker 2: iodine to salt.
Speaker 1: Well, my favorite is kosher salt, and I know it's
Speaker 1: traditionally used in koshering, which is a traditional Jewish process
Speaker 1: which you know blood is removed from me. But kosher
Speaker 1: salt has no additives. It's pure. I love Morton kosher salt,
Speaker 1: diamond crystal kosher salt, but I think it's different because
Speaker 1: it's like it's a little bigger than your table salt,
Speaker 1: and I love it for cooking. I don't use any
Speaker 1: other salt except this from for cooking.
Speaker 2: Same same I have a million salts right here in
Speaker 2: front of me, but yes, the diamond is the one
Speaker 2: that I already always use. And I think, I think
Speaker 2: it's super important to whatever salt that you're cooking with
Speaker 2: to really know your salt, because then you can control,
Speaker 2: you know exactly how much I always have. I have
Speaker 2: my little, my little wache with my little I use
Speaker 2: this as a little salt cellar.
Speaker 4: And then there's also sea salt, which is the salt
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: Sea salt's also not my favor. Why is sea salt
Speaker 1: called sea salt when all salt is from this.
Speaker 4: Because this is the one.
Speaker 2: It's acquired in different ways. But yes, sea salt is
Speaker 2: the salt that is left behind when the seawater evaporates, right,
Speaker 2: So it leaves these flaky salts, and that are mostly
Speaker 2: used as finishing finishing salt to add a little extra
Speaker 2: to a dish. Right, And that's like the flur to
Speaker 2: sell is so beautiful. That literally means flowers of salt
Speaker 2: that are harvested from the special you know, sea beds,
Speaker 2: mostly in France. And then that there's the scent, the
Speaker 2: gray salt.
Speaker 1: But here's a different one because sometimes people get confused
Speaker 1: with like Malden salt and rock salt and sea salt,
Speaker 1: and rock salt is different than the the unrefined sea salts, right,
Speaker 1: like rock salt is like Himalay and pink salt, which
Speaker 1: is mined from these ancient salt beds. So they usually
Speaker 1: it's salt mined from ancient lakes or an ancient sea
Speaker 1: that are now underground. That's rock salt, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know himalay and is pink. The pink salt is is
Speaker 1: pink because it has a large amount of iron, and
Speaker 1: that's the one that's usually like in bat salt or
Speaker 1: body scrubs or aroma therapy and soap. But it's definitely
Speaker 1: labor intensive because it's extracted from the mines by hand
Speaker 1: and then it's hand crushed, and then it's hand washed,
Speaker 1: and then it's dried in the sun. And so this
Speaker 1: is like a very expense labor intensive method.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and it's still extracted the same way that you
Speaker 2: just you know described And most of the commercial supply
Speaker 2: on the market today is from the Krawa salt mine
Speaker 2: in Pakistan and it's impact.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the oldest.
Speaker 2: Salt mine in the world in history dates to discovery
Speaker 2: to Alexander the Great's horses and three twenty BC who
Speaker 2: were found licking the stones and ailing horses recovered after
Speaker 2: licking the stores.
Speaker 1: Well, this is how I know about rock salt, because
Speaker 1: like we had it for our cows on the ranch.
Speaker 1: We would have these huge rock salts on this and
Speaker 1: the cows would come and just lick this big old
Speaker 1: rock rock and literally it's like a huge rock socandley.
Speaker 4: Where did they bring those rocks from?
Speaker 1: I don't know the feed store having but I don't
Speaker 1: know where the feed.
Speaker 4: Store got so cool. Yeah, it's so cool.
Speaker 1: In the valley. I don't know in the valley, Texas.
Speaker 1: But I think it's really important to know your salts.
Speaker 1: You got to know your salt because you can't bake
Speaker 1: with the wrong one and cook with the wrong one
Speaker 1: or finish with the wrong one. It literally chemically alters
Speaker 1: your food, y'all, So learn about your salt.
Speaker 2: Yes, it amplifies flavor, and more than anything else, it
Speaker 2: impacts the flavor of a.
Speaker 1: Dish because salt not only obviously amplifies flavor and draws
Speaker 1: up moisture like we talked about, but it also brings
Speaker 1: out sweetness. People freak out when I put salt on
Speaker 1: my watermelon because I want it to taste sweeter. They
Speaker 1: think I'm like muting the sweetness or something, or you know.
Speaker 1: That's why they put sea salt on chocolate chip cookies
Speaker 1: or a sea salt on top of a brownie. It's
Speaker 1: because it enhances sweetness in fruit and baked goods. And
Speaker 1: people always freak out when I put it on pineapple
Speaker 1: or watermelon. I can. I cannot eat a slice of
Speaker 1: watermelon without salt.
Speaker 4: It's so good, so good.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we're talking Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.
Speaker 1: The other thing I love about salt, as we've talked about,
Speaker 1: is I love cured things. I love cecina in Mexico,
Speaker 1: which is this dried cured meat, but they also have
Speaker 1: it in Spain. I think it originated in Spain. But
Speaker 1: like I love beef jerky. We've talked about machaka on
Speaker 1: this show, right. I love salted shrimp. I like dehydrated
Speaker 1: salted shrimp because they're super salty.
Speaker 4: So good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my mom used to make the dehydrat shrimp, but
Speaker 2: the powdered version. She used to put it in egg
Speaker 2: like beaten egg whites and then fried with like spicy
Speaker 2: tomato sauce.
Speaker 4: We used to have that for lent when I was
Speaker 4: growing up. So good. But yeah, I love cured meat.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what we had. What we had growing up,
Speaker 1: which I think is why I love salt so much.
Speaker 1: We used to have deer jerky. So my dad would
Speaker 1: hunt a deer. We'd use every part of it. This
Speaker 1: for themala is that for this, this for that, and
Speaker 1: then we would we would use the leftover and we'd
Speaker 1: dehydrate it and salt it. And I would take it
Speaker 1: to school as my snack and people are like, what
Speaker 1: are you eating. I'm like, it's theerterky?
Speaker 4: Really, that sounds so good. He would also dry it.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't take it.
Speaker 1: Dad would dehydrate. He would dehydrate it. He would do
Speaker 1: with soak it in like Worchester. He would do like
Speaker 1: a whole thing, soak the meat in that, marinate the
Speaker 1: meat and that, then put it in a dehydrator, salt
Speaker 1: it and it was the best. But I think you
Speaker 1: know this curing of things harmony medical here in Spain. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean it's endless cured me so good or endless
Speaker 1: hands down, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it's about
Speaker 1: food and family and gratefulness as opposed to presents like
Speaker 1: Christmas presents and the timing and so and sos coming
Speaker 1: over and they got to go to the other Christmas
Speaker 1: party and well, like Thanksgiving to me is about like
Speaker 1: getting together and breaking bread. But what it's morphed into
Speaker 1: for my family is, you know, this great day of
Speaker 1: cooking together and being together and talking about what we're
Speaker 1: grateful for. Like that tradition I love, but I get
Speaker 1: I understand like the roots of it is problematic.
Speaker 2: I never grew up and we did talk about this before.
Speaker 2: I didn't really grow up so much celebrating Thanksgiving. But
Speaker 2: now it's my husband's favorite holiday. And so every year
Speaker 2: we go to the East Coast and it's a whole thing,
Speaker 2: and he has a big family and everybody comes together
Speaker 2: and it's you know, the siblings, the kids, the cousins,
Speaker 2: and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Do you brine your turkey? Do you fry your turkey?
Speaker 1: You roaster you turk? What does your turkey process?
Speaker 2: So I normally now go to the East Coast with
Speaker 2: his family, and so they usually order, they have a
Speaker 2: cater they have the turkey cato.
Speaker 1: Oh oh that breaks my heart.
Speaker 4: Well that's that's a new thing.
Speaker 2: When I do cook my own turkey a year that
Speaker 2: we're here, I usually brian it.
Speaker 4: What about you? What is your favorite way to cook
Speaker 4: a turkey?
Speaker 1: I'm a brainer. I like to brin it with a
Speaker 1: bunch of things, peppercorns and you know, sage leaves and
Speaker 1: like a lot obviously salts. But I'm a friar. I fry.
Speaker 1: I make about four turkeys and they take like forty
Speaker 1: five minutes each. I go, pop up, up up, But
Speaker 1: I do brine them for twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: Oh so then it gets the best of these you
Speaker 2: know flavors.
Speaker 1: So I knew. Oh my god, I am smart.
Speaker 2: Turkeys are Mexican, technically Mexican.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's so. Yes. This favorite American bird is.
Speaker 2: Domesticated from a wild species native to Mexico.
Speaker 4: And it's beautiful. It looks like a peacock, the parvoorea right.
Speaker 1: This wow.
Speaker 2: Royal turkey and the Mayans were likely the first to
Speaker 2: domesticate turkeys around two thousand years ago, and the early
Speaker 2: Spanish colonizers brought this domesticated turkey to Europe, and from
Speaker 2: Europe the colonizers of the US, you know, brought it
Speaker 2: back to the US.
Speaker 4: Completing this circle.
Speaker 1: When we talk about Mexico being mostly vegetarian before the conquest,
Speaker 1: because the Spaniard brought the pig and the goat and
Speaker 1: the cow, which brought dairy, which brought meat, which brought
Speaker 1: you know, they were mostly vegetarian except for the wild turkey.
Speaker 1: They did occasionally have foul but it wasn't like chickens
Speaker 1: because they didn't have chickens either. It was wild turkey
Speaker 1: that was like obviously special special occasions. Thanks for listening everyone,
Speaker 1: I hope you have a happy, happy Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: Thank you all so much, and don't underseason your turkey.
Speaker 1: Salted Hungary for History is a Hyphenet media production in
Speaker 1: partnership with Iheart's Michaelpura podcast network.
Speaker 2: For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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