The production of salt from the Eastern Scheldt was an important pillar of Zeeland’s economy. The value of salt was particularly great in those days, as you could use it to extend the life of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables. So you could stockpile supplies to survive the winter. In a later period, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, salt was also used on a larger scale such as in the manufacture of fish sauce and the preservation of herring, cod and haddock.
Salt was prepared in large, flat iron pans, which stood in peat-fired ovens. The whole process of salt extraction was called saltzieden or selnering. This was done in the wooden thatched salt shacks (see image). The crystals, left at the bottom, provided the “silt salt.” Zierikzees salt was especially in demand and was traded far abroad.
