What Was That...Salt?

I was eating a potato chip and began to savor the way in which my taste buds reacted with glee. When the sumptuous flavor finally gave way to reality it was obvious that the oil and salt content was the culprit. What made it taste so delicious was the very thing that we’re all told is so bad! Well, that led to my thinking about the 1700’s & 1800’s and how important salt was to their diet. A day didn’t go by when you didn’t take in something with a high salt content. Back then, a day without salt was a day of risk and recklessness. What was not cured by salt was fresh and fresh was only available during a few months of the year.

Now, however, every time my kids pick up the salt shaker I admonish them for doing irreparable and lasting harm to themselves and our healthcare system. Yet, as I recall, while sitting with my back so straight at the Sunday dinner table at Grand mama’s house, there were these curious, tiny little crystal bowls. These bowls were always filled with salt. Each place setting had one of these tiny little bowls and placed just beyond the silver. I remember dipping my pinky into the salt and tasting the broad and tingling joy that spread from the tip of my tongue all the way to each side.

I guess it has taken quite a while for we moderns to wean ourselves off of the familiar salt hook? Now, there are tributes remnant of a saltier times. They come with names like salt cellars, salts and salt shakers. Made of sterling, pewter, cut crystal and blown glass. We sell hundreds each year to the wandering, voracious collectors. Those who may well have given up on collecting the occasional antique stove or anvil and have turned to a more portable, less arduous category. For we who are the purveyors of such, consider these collectors the very pillars of the industry. For they are among the few that continue in the traditions of old and in their own small way keep the torch lit for at least one more generation.