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American Morning

Salt Gets Its Due in New Book

Aired February 08, 2002 - 08:53   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Ah, salt. You know, Homer once described salt as a divine substance. I bet you didn't know that. I know Jack knew that. Now a writer treats it that way in a new book. It is devoted entirely to the story of salt, and how it has affected world history. Here's our salt of the earth reporter -- or is it saltiest -- CNN's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We shake it on fries, we spread it on sidewalks. Even cows like a good lick. And now there's a book worth its salt. Not recommended for those on a diet of low-salt literature.

MARK KURLANSKY, "SALT: A WORLD HISTORY": It took considerable discipline to keep it down to 500 pages.

MOOS: Complete with chapters like the "Odium of Sodium."

KURLANSKY: Salt is the only rock, you know, that we take and we say, "ah, this is food."

MOOS: Author Mark Kurlansky has his own rock salt collection which he offers to guests.

KURLANSKY: Salt.

MOOS (on camera): Have a lot of people licked this same rock?

KURLANSKY: No, no. I give everyone a different rock.

MOOS (voice-over): If you think what comes out of the shaker is less than earth shaking, check out the salt beds of Bolivia, where the salt looks like snow, and there is even a hotel built out of salt from the walls, to the chairs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When the sun comes inside, all is sparkling and bright.

MOOS: Salt used to be what oil is to us now. Elizabeth I warned the British people about --

KURLANSKY: Our dangerous dependence on foreign salt. MOOS: We know salt raises blood pressure, but how about libido? This French engraving from the 12th century shows women salting their husbands.

KURLANSKY: In the hopes that they would perform better.

MOOS: The word "salacious" comes from salt. Salt was used to preserve everything, from food to mummies.

KURLANSKY: Since it prevents rot, it wards off evil. So in Haitian voodoo, salt is the only way you can bring back a zombie.

MOOS: Sumo wrestlers toss salt to chase away evil spirits. Some consider spilled salt bad luck. By tossing it over the shoulder, we throw away bad luck.

KURLANSKY: If you look closely at the painting of the Last Supper, you will see that there is a spilled salt cellar in front of Judas.

MOOS: Though the Last Supper is too murky for us to make out, eventually technology made finding and excavating salt easy, so its value declined. Mortons succeeded in making crystals uniform in size.

(on camera): They are square.

(voice-over): Then there's that catchy but puzzling slogan, "when it rains, it pours." Explained by the fact that in the old days, moisture caused salt to clump together, until Mortons introduced an anti-caking agent.

(on camera): So it's -- when it rains, it still pours, basically.

KURLANSKY: The salt pours from the shaker when it rains.

MOOS (voice-over): Don't take this subject with a mere grain of salt.

(on camera): The other one was better.

(voice-over): This is a book for seasoned readers.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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