Gastronomy
Gastronomy - what's that? Gastronomy is all about the relationship between culture and food.
You've already read that salt has been used as a food additive since the dawn of civilisation. Today, it's most commonly used for flavour - sometimes for its own flavour (as in salty crisps), but more often as a flavour enhancer. Both in the home and on an industrial scale, salt makes the most of potentially bland ingredients.
Salt has other uses too, of course. By lowering water activity in food, salt limits microbial growth, acting as a preservative in salt cured fish and meat products. By controlling water activity, salt also plays a critical role in cheese manufacture.
Other functional applications include water retention and structure formation. By retaining water in meat-based products, salt makes sausages appear plumper. And by providing a structure, the crystal lattice of salt helps bread maintain its volume.
Finally - and this is a more recent application - salt is used as a textural enhancer. The humble salt crystal has come to signify culinary flair and decadence!
