Original version

BBC World Service Online

The Documentary

Documentaries

Factual

Investigating global developments, issues and affairs.

The Documentary: Salt: Salt and its Diverse History - Part One

Salt Harvest

15/07/2015 GMT

Salt and its Diverse History - Part One

Salt

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Salt, Salt and its Diverse History - Part One

An exploration into the rich, perhaps unexpectedly diverse history of salt

An exploration into the rich, perhaps unexpectedly diverse history of salt.

It is easy to take salt for granted - its abundance on supermarket shelves, coupled with the development of refrigeration and freezing for our food, means we can all too readily overlook its vital and multiple role in our history. In the first of two programmes, Steph McGovern sets out to explain this role. She hears how it has taken root in our language, visits a chemistry class to find out about how it is produced and its importance to our physical well being. She talks to history professor Peter Wallenstein about the unexpected importance of salt in military strategy right up until the 20th Century. 

Pierre Laszlo explains how salt not only helped shape economies and cities like Salzburg, Munich and Venice, but also played a crucial role in revolutions across France, America and India. And, Steph also visits a graveyard and hears talk of the tradition of sin-eating at Welsh wakes, an illustration of salt’s widespread place in religion and superstition across the world.

Finally she talks to a commodities expert to discover just how much salt is worth today - significantly less than the days it was traded like for like with gold.
 
(Photo: Senegalese workers harvest salt at the Ndieumou salt fields, near Fatick, Senegal. Credit: AFP)

The Documentary: Salt

BBC World Service

Steph McGovern explores the rich, perhaps unexpectedly diverse history of salt.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Documentary

Salt

Salt and its Diverse History - Part One

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service