Comment on Ancient food are absurdly complicated.
breecher@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
You have fallen for the myth that salt was rare and expensive in ancient times. Medieval people did know how to make salt out of seawater. There were salt works all over the coasts of Britanny and Normandy during medieval times. Salt was not rare or expensive, except that they did need a lot of it because it was one of their prime preservation ingredients, so they needed barrels and barrels of the stuff, and that could drive prices up. But it was not because they didn’t know how to produce salt in enormous quantities.
Same goes for Roman times. The myth that salt was so rare and precious that it constituted part of the pay for a Roman soldier is wrong. It was because salt was such an important part of the diet and for preservation that it was given this way. They got grain and oil as well.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 5 days ago
It’s also because salt is heavy as fuck, so transporting it from coasts and places with salt mines was expensive.
breecher@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
As expensive as any other good weighing the same. Salt wasn’t expensive, that is my point.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Salt was not expensive for people living near the coast. It got very expensive for people not living near the coast, where ships don’t help much with transportation. It’s heavier than water by volume, because it’s a rock.
I was adding to your comment, because you skipped over the shipping costs, which made up the majority of the price for people not lucky enough to live near salt production.
It’s like mangoes today. If you live where they grow, they’re cheap as fuck. If you don’t, they’re expensive, but not impossible for most people to purchase.