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