Well seasoned

  As a slight distraction I was trying to find out why the two condiments we normally see hand in hand on our tables are salt and pepper. I say normally because it depends where in the world you are or in which restaurant you are eating. Let's assume you are dining in a place with small bottles of black and white grains, why is it these two?

  Salt is probably the easier to understand as it is not only a flavour enhancer but necessary for good health. I'm not going to get into a conversation about the recommended daily dose of salt but sodium is one of the minerals we need and sodium chloride, (the technical name of salt), is an easy source. Easy but not always cheap. In fact at one point it was used as a way of paying wages and here's a bit of trivia. In French salt is called 'sel', in Italian it is called 'sale' and in Spanish, 'sal' and that is why we have the word 'salary'. Moving on...

  Pepper's journey to securing a place on the table is a bit more accidental. There is no doubt that pepper was sought after, popular and valuable but it was just one of many spices that were brought to Europe from far away.

  Word on the street is that it was Louis XIV who is responsible for pairing pepper with salt. Apparently he didn't like strongly seasoned food. He didn't like other people seasoning their food so he even went as far as banning the practice. The only seasonings he would use were salt, pepper and parsley. 

  The practice caught on and spread across Europe and beyond so that now this odd duo is a common sight on western tables, but not necessarily on eastern ones. This is because the food gets cooked with soy, duck or oyster sauce which provide all the sodium we need. That's all for this excursion. Back tomorrow with... 

Kirk out

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