Salt Taxation: The Road to Revolution

Salt, also known as sodium chloride (NaCl), can be considered among the most precious substances on earth, since all mammals, human beings included, must have a healthy dose of salt in their diet to survive. Little wonder, then, that the production and control of salt has been a major concern for governments since the dawn of civilization or that salt monopolization and taxation have contributed to two famous political revolutions.

The value of salt seems counterintuitive to many modern consumers, because residents of most industrialized nations suffer from a surfeit of sodium in their diet. This excess is due largely to the expansion of salt's role as a preservative and flavoring in mass-produced foods beginning in the 19th century, but most food-processing and -curative enterprises relied on salt for thousands of years before that. As such, governments have taken a very active interest in controlling the production of salt at least as far back as the Chou dynasty, which ruled China from 1027 to 256 B.C.

In France and in India, however, salt taxation played a prominent role in two of the most famous uprisings in recorded history: the French Revolution and the movement for Indian independence led by Mahatma Gandhi. In both instances overreaching taxation on salt helped fan the fires of civil unrest, leading to the eventual installation of new governments.

The French Revolution began in earnest in 1789, but seeds of the citizen revolt were planted decades earlier. Among the contributing factors was la gabelle, an excise tax levied specifically on salt. Beginning in 1691 the French monarchy established a system whereby every six years several financiers would purchase appointments as Farmers-General, officials who were empowered to collect indirect taxes on agricultural products, including salt. The costs of these appointments were substantial, and the only way to gain a sizable profit from the position was to charge high taxes on the allotted goods.

Under the Farmers-General system, French salt taxation became painfully expensive and inconsistent by region, forcing peasants to travel great distances to buy affordable salt. Often, purchasing salt outside one's home province was viewed as a form of tax evasion and carried harsh penalties from overseeing authorities. The abuses of the Farmers-General, particularly as applied to la gabelle, became a major rallying cry during the revolution, and both the position and the tax were abolished shortly after the establishment of a democratic France.

Resistance to a salt tax in India nearly 150 years later was considerably less violent but far more overt. Mahatma Gandhi and his nonviolent revolutionaries made a regular habit of noncooperation with British colonial laws during their three-decades-long efforts to secure Indian independence. Among the most notable and influential examples of this civil disobedience was a planned violation of the Salt Acts---laws that protected colonial salt monopolies by forbidding Indian peasants from making their own salt.

As part of the 1930 "Salt March," Gandhi and his followers walked over 200 miles to the coastal town of Dandi, where they used traditional Indian methods to draw salt from seawater. Thousands of Indian citizens engaged in associated demonstrations; by 1931 the repressive Salt Acts were reformed and the political power of the British colonial government was noticeably weakened. Although India would not receive full autonomy from Britain until after World War II, Gandhi's Salt March was nonetheless viewed as a key moment in the independence movement.

The uprisings in India and France are just two examples of salt's importance in human history. Humanity's universal need for it has historically made governmental monopolies and taxation of salt very lucrative sources of revenue---but that same need has made such prerogatives controversial and their exercise a threat to the longevity of those governments that employ them.

Escoffier, the Emperor of the World's Kitchens

Chef George Auguste Escoffier carries the distinction of having revolutionized French cuisine. Born in 1846 in Villeneuve-Loubet, France, Escoffier entered the professional kitchen at age 13, when he worked in the restaurant of his uncle in Nice. He later moved on to work in restaurants in Paris; Lucerne, Switzerland; and Monte Carlo, Monaco. While in Monte Carlo, Escoffier made the acquaintance of the hotelier Cezar Ritz, who provided Escoffier with an opportunity to make French food famous worldwide. In 1890 Ritz asked him to head the kitchen of London's illustrious Savoy Hotel.

When Ritz later opened the Carlton Hotel (also, Ritz-Carlton) in 1899, he again enlisted the famous chef to manage the hotel's kitchen, which Escoffier did until 1919. It was at the Carlton that Escoffier introduced the á la carte menu. Working with Ritz he raised hospitality to new heights, offering his refined but simplified food to an international clientele made up of the famous, rich, and powerful. It has been reported that Kaiser Wilhelm II told Escoffier, "I am the Emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs."

Escoffier is credited with having simplified the elaborate haute cuisine created by another great French chef, Marie-Antoine Careme (1784-1833). Careme is recognized as a founder of haute cuisine, that is, the art of preparing food with the best ingredients, utilizing proven techniques, and using as much time as needed to create the meal. A pastry chef and designer, Careme's cooking was quite decorative, as evidenced by his use of architectural drawings as the basis for his culinary creations.

His cooking was uniquely focused on elegance and decoration, and he sought to establish a school of cookery that would bring together famous chefs to "set the standard for beauty in classical and modern cookery, and attest to the distant future that the French chefs of the 19th century were the most famous in the world." Careme did set the standards for French cooking in the early 1800s, publishing several books, such as The Classic Cuisine, in which he described la grande cuisine française, detailing a wide range of classic French dishes and their sauces and recording them in an organized code. The grande cuisine became popular in the kitchens of the nobility and eventually gained acceptance in hotels and restaurants as well.

Escoffier built on Careme's work in systematizing the repertoire of classic French dishes. He also attempted to refine and simplify the cuisine further. An example of this can be seen in how Escoffier approached sauces, the backbone of French cooking. In A Concise Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy, Andre L. Simon classifies modern sauces as either the Careme and Escoffier type. He notes that "Careme and his disciples produced sauces that were works of art; beautiful and delicious, but complicated," but that their sauces "killed more than they helped the flavour of the meat or game, fish or poultry with which they were served."

In contrast, Escoffier's sauces aimed to "help and not to hide the flavour of whatever dish they adorned." Escoffier's forward-thinking taste is evidenced by the fact that many modern chefs still adhere to his principles, such as lightening sauces and using fresh foods when seasonally available. Indeed, perhaps Escoffier's greatest contribution to classical French cuisine was his effort to respectfully simplify it. "Because it is simplified on the surface, it does not lose its value. On the contrary, tastes are constantly being refined and cooking must be refined to satisfy them," Escoffier is quoted as saying. He did away with the then popular highly wrought food displays and their inedible garnishes, thus forcing the dishes' flavors and textures to stand on their own.

He can also be credited with modernizing the menu, greatly reducing the number of courses served in a meal and systematizing the order in which dishes are served. Escoffier recognized that although the French middle class could afford the cost of dining, they did not have the requisite leisure time to consume the sort of meal enjoyed by the nobility. Responding to this problem he invented the culinary "brigade" system, which split the kitchen into areas that performed specific jobs, like sauce making or fish cookery. By allowing dishes to be cooked in quick succession, the brigade system speeded up the pace at which a meal could be served, thus moving á la carte dining along efficiently and rapidly.

In addition to refining and simplifying French cuisine, Escoffier made other contributions to the culinary world over the course of his 61-year career. His books, particularly Le Guide Culinaire, published in 1903, are still considered mandatory reading for cooks. Today's chefs can also thank Escoffier for the job's heightened status--his prestige moved the chef from the rank of laborer to that of artist, and he was a strong advocate of a humane working environment for kitchen staff.

The Darien Scheme: Scotland's Tragic Bid for Empire

In 1707 Scotland signed the Act of Union with England, officially ceding its independence in hopes that the wealth of the English monarchy could be brought to bear on Scotland's staggering economic woes. Just a decade before Scotland gave up its sovereignty, however, this proud nation had launched a daring plot to establish a revolutionary trade presence in the New World in a historic attempt to reverse the financial misfortune caused by a succession of poor harvests.

The project was known as the Darien Scheme, and its aim was to establish an overland crossing on the Isthmus of Panama (then called the Isthmus of Darien), thereby linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and avoiding the risks and delays of the dangerous oceanic route around Cape Horn. The enterprise was the inspiration of the maverick financier William Paterson---a Scot who had never seen Panama, but who had heard wonderful things about it from a returning sailor.

Paterson had earned his reputation as one of the founders of the Bank of England, but in the late 17th century he returned to his native country armed with the bold ambition of remaking Scotland into an international shipping power capable of competing with the established empires of Britain, Holland, and Spain. Paterson convinced the Scottish Parliament in 1695 to found the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, also known as the Darien Company, as a corporate entity capable of facilitating his dream of creating a lucrative link between East and West.

Modeled after England's East India Company, the Darien Company initially attracted a host of international investors. Soon, however, it met with fierce political opposition from nations threatened by the prospect of Paterson's ambition and his disregard for Spanish claims to Panama. These concerns discouraged many of the Darien Company's international backers, which prompted Paterson to solicit investment from Scotland's own impoverished citizenry. In a very real sense, the economy of Scotland was dependent on the success of the Darien Scheme.

Paterson's fund-raising (estimated, according to the Bank of Scotland, to amount to approximately one-quarter of the total liquid assets of Scotland) was sufficient to outfit five vessels, which set sail for Panama in 1698. Sadly, the 1,200 Scottish settlers aboard these ships were ill-prepared for the challenges and hardships that awaited them. Paterson---himself one of the colonists---had painted an unrealistic picture of friendly native peoples and fertile lands ripe for colonization.

In truth Panama was a wild, harsh jungle under the control of Spanish forces and filled with local tribes that held little regard for European intruders and had small interest in the European goods the Scottish brought for trade. Paterson had envisioned a Scottish colony functioning as a depot for trade goods passing between Europe and Asia and charging a handsome fee for arranging overland transport across the isthmus. Weakened by lack of food and by malaria and yellow fever, however, the colonists were unable to build adequate shelter, grow food, or fend off attacks by the Spanish Navy, let alone establish the dreamed-of trade routes across the isthmus.

The original colonists remained in Panama less than a year before pulling up stakes and returning to Scotland. Of the five ships and 1,200 settlers who had left Scotland in 1698, only one vessel and fewer than 300 survivors returned in 1699. In the meantime additional Scottish settlers set out for the Darien colony only to encounter similar misfortune.

The colossal, devastating failure of the Darien Scheme demoralized the Scottish people, ruined Scotland's economy, and did irreparable harm to the cause of Scottish independence. English payment of a sum (in the opinion of many Scots, a bribe) known as the "Equivalent," largely intended for settlement of the losses of the Darien Company, was one of the determining factors in the Scottish Parliament's ultimate consent to the Act of Union.

Introduction to Minnesota!

In the 1800s, agents from Minnesota were sent to Europe to attract new settlers. They described a land of sparkling lakes, deep pine forests, and rich prairies—a land of opportunity. As a result, thousands of German, Irish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish settlers came to the region. Few were disappointed. Minnesota, "the land of 10,000 lakes," was as beautiful and fertile as the agents had promised.

Ojibwa and Dakota Sioux Indians were the region's first people. French fur traders came in the 1600s. In 1803, the United States acquired most of Minnesota from France in the Louisiana Purchase, and settlers poured in during the mid-1800s. Then came fierce conflicts with the Indians, who were eventually forced to give up their land. Today, most Minnesotans are descended from the Northern European immigrants who arrived in the 19th century.

Minnesota's farms produce livestock, dairy products, corn for grain, soybeans, and wheat; its mines yield iron ore; and its factories manufacture machinery, electronic equipment, paper, and other products. Many of the state's vast forests have been cut down. But those that remain, along with the state's many lakes and rivers, draw millions of vacationers to Minnesota each year.

Today in History February 5

It's the birthday of Hank Aaron, for many years American baseball's all-time champion home-run hitter (with 755), who was born in 1934. In the mid-1970s, Hank Aaron grabbed the attention of the baseball world as he chased a sacred sports record. Babe Ruth, a beloved New York Yankees star, had smacked a record 714 career home runs from 1914 to 1935. As Hank neared this magic number, the pressure grew—and not just for hitting more homers. The Atlanta Braves slugger began to receive threatening letters from racists who didn't want an African American to hold such a cherished record. In Ruth's day all major league players were white.

 Hank Aaron entered "the Show" in the first wave of African American ballplayers after Jackie Robinson blazed the trail in 1947. Like Jackie he showed courage and determination. On Apr. 8, 1974, "Hammerin' Hank" drove his 715th home run over the left-field fence at Georgia's Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. (Trivia fans: the pitch came from Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers.) Baseball had a new champion, who went on to set his record of 755 career home runs. Another African American, Barry Bonds, broke Aaron's record in 2007 and finished the season—and his career—with a new record total of 762.

More Events of February 5:

2003: U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell used satellite photographs, tapes of intercepted conversations, and other material to argue before the United Nations Security Council that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction; no such weapons were found after the Iraq War.

2001: Four members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda, went on trial in New York City for the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

1994: White supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted in Jackson, Miss., of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and sentenced to life in prison.

1988: The Arizona House of Representatives impeached Gov. Evan Mecham; he was subsequently convicted by the Senate and removed from office.

1974: The U.S. space probe Mariner 10 passed within approximately 3,585 mi (5,770 km) of Venus.

1968: Second baseman Roberto Alomar, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011, was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico; his father and his brother, both named Sandy, were also major leaguers.

1963: Abd el-Krim, the Moroccan leader who led the Berber tribes of the Rif in revolt against Spanish and French rule during the 1920s, died.

1948: Idiosyncratic American documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, whose Thin Blue Line (1988; with music by Philip Glass) challenged convention, was born.

1947: Darrell Waltrip, one of the leading drivers on the NASCAR circuit during the 1980s, was born.

1942: Roger Staubach, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, whom he piloted to seven divisional, five league, and two Super Bowl championships, was born.

1938: American playwright John Guare, author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and other award-winning plays, was born.

1937: U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed to Congress increasing the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to 15; this attempt to "pack" the Court with justices more sympathetic to his New Deal programs provoked an uproar and was dropped.

1933: Addison Mizner, the architect who gave Palm Beach, Fla., its distinctive residential style, died.

1931: D. H. Matthews, a British marine geologist responsible for a basic advance in modern plate tectonics, was born.

1929: Drummer Hal Blaine, a sideman who is probably one of the most-heard and least-known pop and rock musicians around, was born.

1928: Andrew Greeley, an American Roman Catholic priest who wrote more than 30 best-selling novels as well as nonfiction sociological works, was born.

1926: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Sr., publisher of the New York Times from 1963 to 1992, was born.

1919: Andreas Papandréou, prime minister of Greece from 1981 to 1989 and from 1993 to 1996, was born; his father, Georgios Papandréou, also served as premier.

1917: Mexico adopted its current constitution.

1915: American physicist Robert Hofstadter, who shared the 1961 Nobel Prize for his work on the structure of protons and neutrons, was born.

1915: Canadian-American novelist Margaret Millar, one of the finest practitioners of the psychological suspense novel, was born.

1914: William S. Burroughs, an American writer whose work had a profound influence on the writers of the beat generation, was born; he is best remembered for his novel Naked Lunch (1959).

1914: Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, a British physiologist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize for work toward understanding how nerve impulses are transmitted along a nerve fiber, was born.

1900: Adlai E. Stevenson II, twice the Democratic candidate for president (1952 and 1956) and twice defeated by Republican Dwight Eisenhower.

1899: French composer Georges Auric, one of the group called Les Six, was born.

1887: Otello, the next-to-last opera by Verdi, premiered at Milan's La Scala.

1881: The farming community of Phoenix, in the Arizona Territory, was incorporated.

1871: Maxine Elliott, a much-admired American actress at the turn of the 20th century, was born.

1859: Alexandru Ion Cuza became prince of Walachia, unifying the two principalities of Romania.

1858: Mahlon Pitney, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1912 to 1922, was born.

1856: Otto Brahm, a German theater director who helped introduce naturalism to the modern German stage, was born.

1848: Joris Karl Huysmans, a French novelist and art critic best known for his novel À Rebours (1884; Against the Grain), called "the breviary of the decadents," was born.

1848: The famous American outlaw Belle Starr was born.

1840: John Dunlop, a Scottish veterinary surgeon who manufactured the first pneumatic tires.

1840: Hiram Stevens Maxim, the American inventor who produced the first practical automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun, which became standard equipment for every army.

1837: Dwight L. Moody, an American evangelist who took his revival campaigns to major American and British cities for almost 20 years, was born.

1826: Millard Fillmore, the future 13th president of the United States, married Abigail Powers.

1810: Ole Bull, a celebrated Norwegian violinist, was born.

1806: Robert Montgomery Bird, an American playwright and novelist best known for his romantic tragedies, was born.

1804: Johan Ludvig Runeberg, a Finnish poet who wrote in Swedish and laid the foundation of an idealist-heroic tradition that subsequently had far-reaching effects on Scandinavian literature, was born.

1797: Jean Duhamel, a French mathematician known for his contributions to acoustics and to mathematical physics, especially partial differential equations, was born.

1788: Robert Peel, the British statesman who founded Britain's Conservative party and served three times as prime minister; one of his most important actions, which cost him his office, was the repeal of the Corn Laws.

1783: "Capability" Brown, the leading English landscape architect of the 18th century, died.

1770: Alexandre Brongniart, a French geologist who pioneered the use of fossils for identifying layers or strata of sedimentary rocks, was born.

1725: James Otis, a distinguished American lawyer and political leader in prerevolutionary Massachusetts, was born.

1723: John Witherspoon, who served (1768–94) as president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) and was the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, was born in Scotland.

1703: Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian leader of America's first widespread religious revival, the Great Awakening, was born.

1631: Roger Williams, the radical Puritan thinker who was to found the colony of Rhode Island, arrived at Boston from England.

1626: Madame de Sévigné, a French noblewoman whose correspondence of more than 1,500 letters contains wonderful portraits of Corneille, La Rochefoucauld, Racine, and Turenne, was born.

1590: Bernardino de Sahagún, the Spanish Franciscan friar who compiled the Florentine Codex (or General History of the Things of New Spain), regarded as the greatest single source of information about Aztec Mexico, died.

1578: Giovanni Battista Moroni, a northern Italian painter noted for his portraiture, died.

1451: Murad II, the sultan who completed the restoration of the Ottoman Empire's unity after the invasion (1400–02) of Timur, died.