The end of an era

[ladyofastolat]

I have just decanted the last of the salt into a little salt shaker. The carton* of salt (750g) came from Safeway, which dates it to before 2004, when it turned into Morrisons. However, we stopped shopping in Safeway c. 1999, when a new Sainburys opened up right next door to where we were then living. The copyright date on the carton design is 1993. We moved to the island in 1994, setting up house from scratch, so I think it is entirely possible that this salt carton was bought in 1994, and has lasted us nearly 20 years. I feel a strong urge to commemorate this with something probably-ritual, but can't think what. This is despite having recently read an entire book on the social and cultural history of salt.

* Some years ago, we had had a long conversation with various relatives over Christmas dinner** as to the differences between jars, cans, packets, and so on. "That squidgy plastic container you get salt in" caused us particular difficulty, but I think we settled on "carton" in the end.

** No, conversation in our family is not generally particularly racy, daring or world-changing

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

My salt container, still mostly full, may be nearly that old.

Salt at least doesn't have an expiration date. I have small jars of store-bought herbs whose expiration dates passed years ago, but they'll still flavorful.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, and considering just how little salt we get through, I'm now quite surprised that we've got through nearly 750g of it in 20 years. Or maybe we used to use more than we do now? It's kind of depressing to think that the next salt carton I buy may well last us the rest of our lives.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I think we may have used salt in large amounts for non-culinary things such as slug-barriers in the past - might similar explain some of your salt use? Alternatively, guests? Certainly people coming to stay in our house tends at some point to lead to a search for a salt-shaker (for cooking, it just tends to come from the big plastic container.)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I use a salt shaker for cooking, since I find the small size more manageable. I don't think it's ever found its way onto a table, even with guests, but I don't know. I've just about managed to remember that guests might want sugar in their tea, but it never occurs to me that they might want to shake salt over their food.