In Salt A World History, Mark Kurlansky takes a substance that shaped the fortunes of cultures from ancient China to Britain to the Americas and runs with it...Although not strictly food history, Salt is at its most winning in the chapters telling of people 's obsession with it for flavoring and preserving meat and vegetables...But it 's really the quirks that seem to interest Kurlansky and make this book fascinating. These sorts of stories sustain the book 's narrative until, by the end, when Kurlansky reports on haute cuisine 's interest in unusual,