Chapter 1 begins with a history of early China and a description of Huangdi, a mythical inventor and early Chinese hero who, supposedly, fought the first war over salt. Some of the earliest salt mines are found in Europe. There are records of the Chinese extracting salt from the ocean and trading it as early as 800 B.C. They would take ocean water in clay pots and boil the water off until there were only salt crystals.
The Chinese, realizing that salt was rare, would tend to include salt in sauce or paste condiments rather than adding it directly to the food. The most popular was a mixture of soybeans and sauce that we still use as soy sauce. The Chinese also pioneered the art of preserving vegetables and even eggs by pickling them with a solution