On salt and preservation

Michie

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“Without salt the feast is spoiled.
-Polish proverb

The salt arrives in the usual brown corrugated shipping box with the Amazon logo emblazoned on the side. The red 3-pound box of Diamond kosher salt and a smaller, somewhat mangled box of flaky Malden sea salt are wedged between, two $10 3-inch bamboo salt wells, a bulk package of cards for the nursing home residents I visit and two pairs of black “squat proof” workout capris.


The salt arrives in the usual brown corrugated shipping box with the Amazon logo emblazoned on the side. The red 3-pound box of Diamond kosher salt and a smaller, somewhat mangled box of flaky Malden sea salt are wedged between, two $10 3-inch bamboo salt wells, a bulk package of cards for the nursing home residents I visit and two pairs of black “squat proof” workout capris.

download-2021-03-11T103551.801-1-300x157.jpg

Sea salt

My son wanders through the kitchen. He twists the lids on the salt wells and asks why I need salt from Amazon. We already have salt, he says (always logical, always hungry, dinner consumes the mind of my 18-year-old). My husband passes through and is halted by the collection too. He asks the same question. Salt?

I cook a lot. They can’t digest why I would have any need to order salt from Amazon.

Our pantry has iodized table salt to sprinkle on vegetables, stovetop popcorn, baked potatoes, and a dark blue box of Morton’s grainy Kosher salt that I dump into pasta water, rub into thick cuts of raw meat, and measure into hearty soups.

We live in a small town. The few times I have been to Whole Foods have been more like field trips than routine shopping. Trader Joe’s is on my bucket list. I have found a few variations of salt close to home – pink Himalayan salt, rock sea salt for a grinder.

But, the new “cookbook” I got for Christmas, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat, opens my mind to the possibilities of salt. She explains how Diamond sticks to food better than Morton’s, how the Malden adds just the right crunch and a “taste of the sea” atop salad greens. “Get used to the way the salt falls from your hands; experience the illicit thrill of using so much of something we’ve all been taught to fear,” says Nosrat. I am baffled that this information about different types of salt has been hidden from me for so long.

Two days after the salt arrives, the readings of the Catholic Mass are about salt. “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matthew 5:13 NAB translation). I hear the readings four times at three different churches where I play the organ. I go home and read the inscription on the top of one of the new salt wells, “take life with a grain of salt.” I start to say to my husband, “can you believe the readings were about…” He finishes, “salt.”
I think of the metaphors related to salt, the way it is used in the Bible to signify permanence, purification and preservation. In the Old Testament, God directs Elisha to put salt in contaminated water to purify it (II Kings 2:20-21). In the New Testament we are told “Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another” (Mark 9:50) and “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you should respond to each one.” (Col. 4:6) Salt is mentioned more than 30 times in the Bible (number varies on translation)

Continued below.
On salt and preservation
 

2BeholdHisGlory

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I love and use Diamond Kosher salt, I also love the feel of it sprinkling it, its a larger crystal. I go through it faster, I don't like the feel of our Celtic salt (its wet) but its supposedly packed with minerals. Would love to see tests on that especially coming out of the sea these days.
 
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