House & Garden: Getting salt to the table

Most table salt comes from salt deposits that are widely distributed throughout the nation. <br><br>A salt maker first drills a well, then injects water to dissolve the salt. The concentrated brine is

Friday, February 25th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Most table salt comes from salt deposits that are widely distributed throughout the nation.

A salt maker first drills a well, then injects water to dissolve the salt. The concentrated brine is then brought to the surface and piped to a mechanical evaporating plant (salt refinery) that uses steam to produce granulated salt, says Bruce Bertram, technical director of the Salt Institute. (These same salt deposits can be mined conventionally by drilling, blasting and cutting to produce rock salt. The coarser, less-pure rock salt typically is used to de-ice roads.)

A small portion of food-grade table salt comes from solar salt facilities that extract salt from sea water. That's because there are only a few places in the United States, such as Great Salt Lake, San Francisco Bay and Southern California,where conditions are favorable.
"Most solar salt facilities around the world are located in arid countries on either side of the equator, such as India, Mexico and the Middle East," Mr. Bertram says. "They have a good source of sea water, good evaporation and a lot of low-lying, cheap land that can be flooded," he says.

Aside from table salt and sea salt, solar salt plants in the United States produce salt for use in water softening and other industrial processes.

A sprinkling of history

In ancient times, salt was hard to find but essential to life.
People needed salt to preserve food, tan leather, trade for other goods, and - in Egypt - for mummification.

Roman soldiers were paid with salt, salarium agentum, which is the origin of the word salary.

The early Greeks traded slaves for salt, hence the expression, "He is not worth his salt." Ethiopians used salt disks as money. And in Timbuktu, Africans discovered that salt was worth its weight in gold.

Salt played a key role in religion, folklore and superstition, too. Some of the first written references to salt are in the Bible, recorded as early as 1400 BC. The most familiar is the story of Lot's wife who turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.In the book of Matthew, Jesus called his loyal followers "the salt of the earth."

During the Middle Ages, children wore bags of salt around their necks to protect them from harm. People believed that spilling salt brought bad luck.

Leonardo da Vinci immortalized the superstition when he included a saltcellar overturned by Judas Iscariot in his masterpiece The Last Supper.

Men have fought and died for salt. A heavy tax on salt in France incited the French Revolution. During the American Civil War, brave men waged fierce battles over salt-producing areas such as Saltville, Va.
"Soldiers had to have it for tanning leather, making saddles, boots and powder holders," says Carol Litchfield of the International Commission for the History of Salt.

In the 1930s, Britain's salt tax contributed to India's civil rights movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. Transporting salt was expensive but so important to developing civilizations that ancient trade routes like the Via Salaria (Salt Road) in Italy were created.

Camel caravans brought salt into the desert of Africa, a practice that continues to this day. In America, the Erie Canal was completed in 1825 to ship salt.

Today, U.S. salt makers annually produce more than 24 million tons of the substance. Of that, only 4 percent makes it to the dinner table. The largest amount, roughly 70 percent, goes to the chemical industry, where salt is used to manufacture chemicals such as chlorine and soda ash (to make plastics, synthetic fibers, pesticides, fertilizers and cosmetics).