My Favorite Food Group

The other day in Barnes & Noble, I was browsing the new non-fiction table, sifting through topics of little interest when my fingers drifted across a world history... of salt.

Now. Salt has been, since I can remember, my favorite condiment, spice, sugar, vegetable, starch, fruit, protein, carb... everything, anything. I LOVE salt. It's just that pure. White. Table salt, sea salt, garlic salt...

For several years, or more than that, my father has cleverly declared that salt was, and still is, my favorite food group. I have proudly relayed this fact to anyone and everyone who has the privilege of witnessing my admiration for the mineral, rock, crystal, and brine.

Salt, A World History, by Mark Kurlansky, begins with admiration as well - for a rock he purchased in Spanish Catalonia adding that "those who think a fascination with salt is a bizarre obsession have simply never owned a rock like this."

I hadn't even gotten beyond the introduction before I began turning down corners of pages, stopping to re-read sentences that has struck me in one way or another, reveling in the fact someone was unknowingly developing my affection for salt by deepening my understanding for sodium, "a chemical term for a substance produced by the reaction of an acid with a base."

Wait. Back-up. No forward, quickly avoiding an impromptu chemistry lesson, forgotten labs about electrons, balancing equations...

"When sodium, an unstable metal can suddenly burst into flame, reacts with a deadly poisonous gas known as chlorine, it becomes the staple food sodium chloride, NaCL, from the only family of rocks eaten by humans."

To reiterate, not only is salt the ONLY rock we eat (rock candy excluded), we narrowly miss encounters with a flaming metal and its poisonous gas camaraderie in order to enhance... enhance the flavoring of our foods.

To add to this excitement, I learned that our bodies need salt to survive (which I had assumed was true) but more importanly if we deplete our bodies of sodium, we will perish. I never, in a lifetime of dedication, knew that salt was such a dramatic, and timeless rock. Though it is proven that salt can be derived from anywhere on the planet, this rock, these crystals started wars and manipulated governments, provided cornerstones for religious ceremonies, and gave satisfaction to girls like me, with plates of french fries and chicken nuggets.