Salty Solutions

There are so many things that we take for granted that just seem to go nicely together – coffee and cream, peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, chips and dips, cheese and crackers, and of course, salt and pepper. Watching Jackie cook in the kitchen, I noticed how she measured some ingredients, but also added a “dash” of salt and pepper to the recipe. It got me wondering where the use of S&P came from. Being a salt-bath champion at KHT, I’ve come to know just how amazing salt baths are for our most trusted and critical products. The use of molten salt as a heating and quenching medium for steels, developed in England at the turn of the 20th century, is awesome. Now I could go on for hours – even days – telling you all of the ways that salt bath heat treating is incredible – wonderful! Just give me a call. If you’d like to know more about salt baths and heat treating, we are here to help. Ironically, one of the main chemical components in salt bath heat treating is Sodium Chloride (Common table salt!) Here’s some history about salt and pepper. Enjoy!

Salt’s journey to dinner tables is rooted in its importance to human life. The natural mineral is crucial for maintaining hydration, nerve function, and muscle control in the body, among other things. Given salt’s essential role in survival, it’s no surprise that humans developed a taste for it. Even after reading this article, I have to say, I love salty foods – snacks!

Early human diets were heavy in meat and naturally provided sufficient salt. But as nomadic hunter-gatherers settled into agricultural societies and diets started including more grains, supplementing salt became important. The resource, though naturally abundant, wasn’t always easy to obtain, and it became a highly sought-after commodity throughout expanding civilizations.

In ancient Rome, the production and transport of salt evolved into a major industry. Salt was highly valued and was even used as currency, with soldiers sometimes receiving their salarium, or wages, in salt — a practice that gave rise to the English word “salary.” (Sal is the Latin word for salt… now you know!!)

As European empires expanded and trade routes grew, so did salt’s reach, though it largely remained a necessity of food preservation and was used as a seasoning only by the wealthy. Throughout the Middle Ages, upper-class hosts even made sure their guests of honor were seated next to elaborate, expensive salt cellars at the dining table.

Around the same time, black pepper was experiencing peak popularity in medieval Europe. Native to India’s Malabar Coast, pepper was used in local cooking as early as 2000 BCE, but as trade networks expanded, the spice became highly prized in the Roman Empire, where it was as valuable as gold. Like salt, it remained a top commodity and a luxury for centuries throughout Europe due to difficulties importing it from tropical regions, as well as for its supposed medicinal properties.

Black pepper was believed to aid digestion, ward off diseases, and treat ailments such as arthritis and gout. By the mid-17th century, however, these medical beliefs were waning, and the spice trade shifted significantly as new imports such as coffee, chocolate, and tobacco entered the scene (I love coffee and chocolate!). Food preferences also changed, reflecting refinements in regional cooking, especially in France.

Historians trace the most likely implementation of salt and pepper into everyday cooking to the rise of French haute cuisine in the 17th century. French chefs such as François Pierre La Varenne, who contributed to the influential 1651 cookbook Le Cuisinier Francois (The French Cook), began reducing the amount of spices used in cooking, instead aiming to emphasize ingredients’ natural flavors. This style of cooking also introduced a clear separation between savory and sweet dishes in a meal.

For a meal, salted foods were served first to stimulate the appetite, while sweet dishes were saved for the end to satisfy it (I LOVE DESSERT – New York-style cheesecake with cherries is one of my favorites). Pepper, one of the few spices that flavored food without overpowering the taste, didn’t work well with sweets – but it did pair well with salt, and both were relegated to a meal’s savory servings. This shift in French cuisine was a major influence throughout Europe, especially after the cookbook’s first English translation in 1652.

Much the same way pepper proliferated in Europe via land and sea routes, the spice and its culinary uses were introduced to the Americas through European colonizers. Salt, of course, was naturally occurring, but was made more easily available in the Americas with the arrival of colonial settlers and an influx of goods from European imports.

Following the American Revolution, New York and Virginia became hotspots of domestic salt production, while Massachusetts emerged as an early-19th-century pioneer in the North American pepper trade. Both were in easy abundance for the early citizens of the United States. (Looking out my window here at KHT, I overlook the Cargill Salt operation, where they harvest rock salt (halite) from a massive underground mine located nearly 1,800 feet beneath Lake Erie, used for de-icing roads during winter).

By the early 20th century, most U.S. homes had refrigerators, and salt’s role as a food preservative had diminished as its primary role was now in cooking. After anticaking agents such as magnesium carbonate were added to salt in 1911, saltshakers became practical and widely used, and a staple at home and in restaurants.

Salt and pepper had long been habitually used together, so pepper shakers appeared shortly after, and the pair’s status as everyday cooking essentials was cemented. Join the Club. It’s always fascinating to see what people collect!

If you have any unique shakers, send me a photo: skowalski@khtheat.com.