When I was a scrawny, frizzy-haired weirdo in middle school (and let’s face it: we were all a little off in middle school), my teacher gave our class a list of topics to do a research paper on. We could only choose from that list, and there was a topic for every student. I was sick that day, and so when I arrived the next day, everything was crossed off except for “salt.”

I’m sure you can imagine my feelings of helplessness at the thought of trying to write a six- to eight-page research paper on a silly topic like salt. Salt could only be more interesting than watching a piece of paper sit on an uninteresting table, and I was quite certain that I would not find anything about salt other than that it was made up of various unimportant things and that you put it on your spinach to make it more palatable.

Boy, was I wrong.

I found a wealth of information on salt. And it is interesting.

Peng-Tzao-Kan-Mu , a Chinese pharmacological treatise written c. 2700 B.C., describes over forty different kinds of salt, and details two methods of extracting salt and making it usable. Salt was also important to other civilizations and is mentioned frequently in ancient Babylonian and Egyptian texts. The Egyptians, for example, would use a type of salt called natron in the mummification process.

Salt was also great in food preservation. Egyptians and Medieval fisherman would pack their meat in salt to keep them from rotting. And before genetically modified vegetation, it was all Medieval peasants could do to have a semi-decent harvest. In order to survive, they had to preserve what they harvested in lots of salt for the winter.

Salt’s necessity made it highly valuable in ancient times. In Rome, you could be paid in salt. Salarium argentum, or “salt money,” is where we get the word “salary” from. It was literally currency in many places, such as Ethiopia . It was so valuable, that it became a symbol of friendship and status in medieval times. And if one were to spill salt, it was considered bad luck.

And the next time you indulge your inner child and go down a slide, thank the salt miners who worked in the Hallein Salt Mine outside of the aptly named Salzburg. The miners found it was a lot faster and easier to get to the lower levels using long wooden planks that they could slide down. And it wasn’t long before they discovered the fun in that. Today, it is a (pricey) tourist attraction that offers the chance to slide down into the mine. The tour is also a great chance to see a wonderfully preserved mummy of a Celtic miner who died in the mine.

Here: I’ll even show you a picture of the handsome fella (courtesy of another blogger ):

I hear he’s still single and ready to mingle. But only if you’re into that kind of thing.

But there you have it. Isn’t salt awesome? I know I thought it was when I turned in a ten-page job well done to my teacher. And if, while you were reading this, you were like, “Whoa! Salt is rad!” Might I suggest some reading material to get started? This is the book that really sold it to me while I was writing the paper.