Kurlansky periodically inserts recipes from the time periods and locations he discusses in the books. The recipes reflect the public’s culinary tastes from the era in question, along with the ingredients used, the methods by which food was prepared, preserved, and served, and more. The recipes and dishes vary wildly, but a trait common to all of them is salt, and the presence of salted ingredients. 

The origin of the modern words “salad,” “soldier,” and “salary,” among others, are derived sal, the Latin word for salt. Idioms such as “red herring” and “worth his salt” also come, respectively, from the practice of fur trappers using salted herring to create a false trail for hungry, pursuing wolves, and Roman soldiers requesting to be paid in salt, rather than in money.