In practice, salt was not just used to enhance the flavour of food, but was mainly used to dry food (and thus preserve it) and was added to the fodder for sheep, common throughout the region of Venice, one of the cornerstones of its economy having always been the provision of pasture for flocks on the move and the resulting wool industry. Cassiodoro’s writings also seem to imply the use of salt as a bartering tool, letting us understand that salt was widely traded and a valuable commodity.