“Things that become important to economies become ritualized and become deified. Because I'm Jewish, I always thought it was interesting that in Judaism, salt seals a bargain, particularly the covenant with God. Some people, when they bless bread, they dip it in salt. Same thing exists in Islam.”

American journalist and author

Mark Kurlansky is an American journalist and author. He is known for writing both fiction and nonfiction, and for books that reached a wide international readership. His 1997 book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World became an international bestseller and was translated into more than fifteen languages. He also wrote Nonviolence: Twenty-five Lessons From the History of a Dangerous Idea, which won the nonfiction prize for the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.