Fire, Water and Salt
Thanks for all the comments. I’m just off on a trip right now but just to warn you that when I return I will be posting on fire, water, and salt.
These we all now take as essentially free in cooking. That’s just off the scale in world history. In most places and most times, these were very significant costs in food preparation. Some have claimed they were as expensive as the food itself. I don’t have figures to show that. But I don’t think we can understand food history unless we take into account the cost of fire, water and salt.
I’ve mentioned this before about fuel and water in South Korea up until the 1970s. Many families still got their water from wells or pumps. Fuel for cooking was big cylinders of coal. And salt, so important for preserving food, big jars of various kimchi (pickles), salting fish and making fermented bean pastes (so important for protein).