So today we're continuing to talk about the social history of foodstuffs, and we're going on to consider next the importance of salt and the significant role it has played. Salt was a highly valued commodity in ancient times. Not because it made food taste nicer, but because of the way it could be used to preserve food. This meant that people were not so dependent on seasonal variations in what was available for them to eat - they could preserve what they produced and consume it as required. It also meant that food could be transported long distances. Salt was not easy to obtain and so prices for it were high. It was often necessary to transport it long distances and it is believed that one of the reasons for building some of the roads that led to the ancient city of Rome was to make it easier to bring salt to the city from various parts of the Roman empire. Roman rulers took financial advantage of the population's need for salt.
When they wanted to raise money for some war or another, they raised the price of salt. Elsewhere salt was important too. In Africa, for example, caravans consisting of up to forty thousand camels are said to have travelled four hundred miles across the Sahara to transport salt to the inland markets of places like Timbuktu.
Salt was a highly valued commodity in ancient times because the way it can be used to preserve food, so people can preserve what they produced and food can also be transported long distances. Roman rulers took financial advantage of the population's need for salt due to its scarcity; moreover, salt was important and hard to obtain throughout the world.
