Quotes from Mark Kurlansky

salt by definition is a compound created by the neutralization of an acid and a base. Both are extremely unstable—one because it lacks an electron and the other because it has an extra one. So they are, like a good marriage, attracted to each other because they solve each other's problem, complete each other, and result in an extremely stable compound.

Cows are the leading source of hamburger meat in America. Dairy cows are very lean because they put everything into producing milk, so they make good lean ground meat.

The only thing New Yorkers ignore more than nature is history. They have a habit of not spending a great deal of time pondering the history of their city. That is because of a sense that it has always been more or less the same, or, as Edmund Wilson, one of the more venerated New Yorker writers of that magazine's heyday, explained his waning enthusiasm for reading history in his old age, "I know more or less the kind of things that happen.

The leading articulator of this rich diet, the last preindustrial British cuisine, was Hannah Glasse, whose books were so popular that Dr. Johnson claimed there was no such person and Hannah Glasse must be the nom de plume of a man. But Hannah did exist, she was a woman, and she cooked with endless quantities of cream and butter.

epithet of the drunkard's biscuit.

French butter makes better pastry than American butter because it contains more fat and less water.

weak as water.

THE ROMANS SALTED their greens, believing this to counteract the natural bitterness, which is the origin of the word salad, salted. The

nunna daul Tsuny in the Cherokee language

Herzl had said that attracting the Jewish diaspora would be a slow process, but after a half century as a nation, according to the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, only 17 percent of American Jews have ever visited Israel.

Gen. de Gaulle is only concerned about history, and no jury can dictate the judgment of history. Georges Pompidou

Cherokee faction of fewer than 500 people in a nation of 17,000 who were agreeable to removal.

If someone were to come along who would not compromise, a rebel who insisted on taking the only moral path, rejecting violence in all its forms, such a person would seem so menacing that he would be killed, and after his death he would be canonized or deified, because a saint is less dangerous than a rebel. This has happened numerous times, but the first prominent example was a Jew named Jesus.

It is a sad fate for a people to be defined for posterity by their enemies.

Jesus was seen as dangerous because he rejected not only warfare and killing but any kind of force. Those in authority saw this as a challenge. How could there be authority without force?

Chloride is essential for digestion and in respiration. Without sodium, which the body cannot manufacture, the body would be unable to transport nutrients or oxygen, transmit nerve impulses, or move muscles, including the heart. An adult human being contains about 250 grams of salt, which would fill three or four salt-shakers, but is constantly losing it through bodily functions. It is essential to replace this lost salt. A

The oldest-known permanent photograph, an image of a man leading a horse, dates from 1825.

The Egyptians were the inventors of raised bread. To make leavened bread, a gluten-producing grain, not barley or millet, was necessary, and about 3000 B.C. the Egyptians developed wheat that could be ground and stretched into a dough capable of entrapping carbon dioxide from yeast.

the Poor Men of Lyons

The best dishes are often those to which the chef adds a personal statement, even when using a very old recipe. As Colette said, use a little alchemy

had the good fortune to come from a generation that had no YA books available. Once you moved beyond children's books there was nowhere to go but adult books.

softness overcomes hardness.

I had the good fortune to come from a generation that had no YA books available. Once you moved beyond children's books there was nowhere to go but adult books.

One of the consequences of printing is that it tends to standardize language