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Wilma Pfeiffer, a native of Upper Austria living in Bavaria, cultural scientist and tourism specialist, and the historian and journalist Walter Stelzle, a convinced Old Bavarian and summer visitor (self-statement), have one thing in common: telling well-researched regional stories in an exciting way. In their most recent project, they realized Salt and the Salzkammergut region with a view of Bavaria as a book. The use of capital letters in the title SALT MAKES CULTURE deliberately creates ambiguity. On the one hand, the three words, viewed in isolation, clarify three positions, on the other hand, when read as a sentence, they form a program. Both emphasize in the foreword "that without salt our Alpine culture would not be as we know it today." The geographical center of salt production, as well as the content of the book, is the region between the Inn and Salzach.
In the first part of the book Salt and Knowledge you learn a lot about the meaning and value of salt, which was one of the most valuable goods for a long time. Its origin (“All salt comes from the sea”) and its use in everyday life, which is discussed in the subchapter “Curing and Sururing”, are also discussed here. The robbery of the Saliera, probably the most valuable salt container in the world, on May 11, 2003 is also described. The legendary Man in the Salt, the prehistoric miner who was found in a Hallstatt tunnel in 1734, also appears, as does the reference to his appreciation in a historical novel by Ludwig Ganghofer. Freely retold legends, such as "Mill, mill, grind for me..." (from Norwegian), lighten up the informative and easy-to-read text.
Parts two, "Power and Ways", and three, "Culture and History", refer to the region mentioned above, which affects not only Austria, but also southern Bavaria. The extraction of salt is described here, which experienced great progress through the leaching process, but at the same time resulted in an enormous need for wood for heating the brewing pans. Once again it is shown how deeply salt has regional roots and how far-reaching effects it had on forestry and transport along the rivers.
The description of the places, first the Salzkammergut, then the region around the state capital Salzburg and finally the Bavarian towns of Bad Reichenhall and Berchtesgaden, is about local stories. The fixed points range from the Traunfall, via the Traunsee, Gmunden, Bad Ischl to the Ausseerland in Austria, with each view of the role of salt being worked out. Excursion tips enrich the book.
The writer Alfred Komarek is also dedicated to the topic of salt. Komarek has been a salt expert since his birth in Bad Aussee in 1945. Not just with the book Salt & Austria (2022), but a few years earlier with Austria with a pinch of salt (1998), the predecessor to this book, he wrote again and again about salt.
Komarek begins with the chapter "Journey of discovery, country by country" and provides a salt reference to each of the nine federal states, which often shows something that is hardly known. In Vorarlberg he tells us about the salt barn in Feldkirch, in Upper Austria there are the magazines in Stadl-Paura and the horse-drawn railway that brought the precious mineral to Bohemia. In Burgenland there are the salt deposits in the Seewinkel. Of course, it's not rock salt here, but rather soda, Epsom salt, Glauber's salt and other varieties. In Vienna it's about the well-known Saliera. Here we read in the biography of Benvenuto Cellini, the goldsmith of the salt barrel, translated into German by Goethe, the passage where it is about the presentation of the work of art to the French King Francis I. By the way, we know that Saliera came to Austria from Charles IX. thanks to the man who gave the work of art to Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol. This surprises Komarek, as we would have expected the story of the robbery at the Saliera, the most famous salt bowl in the country. He probably assumes this as general knowledge and prefers to enrich his readership with unknown topics on familiar topics.
The following 20 chapters take stories across the country and illustrate – in the truest sense of the word – the meaning of salt with selected colorful pictures. “Maritime Austria” is about the geological formation of salt. "Recently, 250 million years ago: A huge universal continent Pangea bathed its edges in the warm sea tides of the Thetis...". The choice of words and the associated image are typical of Komarek; Poetry at its finest.
Of course, a lot of space is dedicated to Hallstatt, the Hallstatt period and the prehistoric miners. We also find the ingredients for their strengthening food, a Ritschert, namely broad beans, barley, millet, pork, thyme, vinegar, savory and salt.
Komarek loves word games, so his “Little Power Music” takes us to the state capital Salzburg. The period from 700 AD, the era of St. Rupert, in which salt "from Bad Reichenhall" played an important role, to the Salzburg church princes. On page 60 we see Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau. "Read and be amazed: Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau's downfall was not his supposedly 15 children, but rather his poor economic decisions," says the caption.
Komarek sees salt not just as a commodity, but as “a magic word that opens up Austrian living spaces for fascinating, exciting, pleasurable experiences…”. He gives the decision-makers, the “salt-powerful ones,” a wish: “The main thing is that they share bread and salt and act accordingly.” This concludes the book.
Conclusion: Even though both books deal with the cultural and historical background of salt in some of the same regions, their content is based on different approaches. They bring the familiar, surprise with the unknown, are digestible, enriching and very worth reading. (Thomas Hofmann, June 7, 2024)