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Salt — Really Handy and Important Stuff

Salt has been a valuable commodity throughout history. Until refrigeration became common, it was a main ingredient in preserving perishables like meat. According to etymonline, the English word “salary” comes from Latin for “salt ration,” “salt buying money.” Apparently it was pretty important for the soldiers to buy their salt.

All that to say that I’m immensely grateful for salt after I managed to leave it out of all my cooking this week. Even curry and chipotle seasonings don’t substitute for salt. Bleh.

Fortunately, salt is also something that can be fairly easily added afterwards. I just take it less for granted now.


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Recipe Thursday: Homemade Chinese Turkey/Chicken Meatballs
May 8, 2008 at 11:01 am

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Mrs Micah's Mom April 24, 2008 at 7:28 pm

How did you come to leave the salt out? Were you worried about sodium intake? Did you run out?

Aryn April 24, 2008 at 7:39 pm

I’m wondering the same thing as your mom. πŸ™‚ I use salt sparingly, but I wouldn’t leave it out unless a doctor advised me to. It really does help bring out the flavor.

mrsmicah April 24, 2008 at 8:02 pm

No…this would be the usual reason, I completely forgot the salt. I was focusing on some new spices and I’d gotten them all lined up but wasn’t thinking about the lines in both recipes which called for salt. It was supposed to go in along with the spices, but it wasn’t in the lineup.

Becky@FamilyandFinances April 24, 2008 at 9:22 pm

Lol! That happens πŸ™‚ I hate when I forget ingredients!

StackingPennies April 24, 2008 at 9:55 pm

I was wondering the same thing! I don’t use a lot of salt, but when I leave it out of recipes that it goes in, it is very noticeable

deepali April 24, 2008 at 10:24 pm

I rarely use salt, and don’t really miss it. πŸ™‚

Alice April 25, 2008 at 8:18 am

I’ve left salt out of the bread machine a couple of times — it’s horrible!

I had been given to understand that Roman soldiers were actually paid with salt rather than coin…is that incorrect?

Becca April 25, 2008 at 11:24 am

That reminds me of this book that our honors college had contemplated switching to as the “let the freshman suffer” summer reading book. It’s called Salt: A World History. Honestly, at 498 pages it would have been a better choice than what they DID make us read (Europe: A History at 1392 pages) and we could have skipped the whole “people having sex with bulls” meandering.

Anyway, it came to mind. I heard it was a good read.

Christine April 25, 2008 at 12:26 pm

I shall call you Queen Lear.

Aaron Stroud April 25, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Salt is extremely important at my house. We get our water from a well that is full of very, very metallic water. The water contains so much iron and magnesium that are dog won’t even drink the water!

So we have a heavy duty water softener system that uses salt to clean the filtering media. We go through a 40 lb bag of salt every week. Fortunately, the salt only costs ~$4.50 at Walmart!

E.C. April 25, 2008 at 3:25 pm

Have you ever given sea salt a try? My ex-boyfriend sold me on the idea. It seems weird, but in some things without lots of seasoning, like when I stir fry veggies with a bit of garlic and some salt, it really does add interesting nuance. Sea salt cost slightly more, but when you calculate it on a per serving basis it adds less than a cent to the cost of the dish.

dlm May 25, 2009 at 3:25 pm

leaving salt out (as I did) can leave you low in iodine and cause problems with your thyroid!!

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