Salt
mineral used as food ingredient, composed primarily of sodium chloride
In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as rock salt or halite. Salt is essential for life in general, and saltiness is one of the basic human tastes. Salt is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous food seasonings, and is known to uniformly improve the taste perception of food, including otherwise unpalatable food. Salting, brining, and pickling are also ancient and important methods of food preservation.
Quotes
edit- A grain of salt.
- Idiomatic. Cf. Pliny the Elder's Natural History XXIII: addito salis grano ("a grain of salt being added")
- But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
- Genesis 19:26 (KJV)
- And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
- Leviticus 2:13 (KJV)
- The role of salt from the chemical point of view is to salt somebody’s soup.
- Chaim Weizmann, quoted by Project Herzl.
- Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
- Matthew 5:13 (KJV)
- Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
- Colossians 4:6 (KJV)
- Nūlla in tam magnō est corpore mīca salis.
- Can you find in the whole of her body the least pinch of salt?
- Catullus, Carmina, 86
- Arthur Symons, transl., "De Quintia et Lesbia" (1913)
- Pippin: The salted pork is particularly good.
Gimli [longingly]: Salted pork?
- Budd: You done got a double dose of rock salt, right in the ole tit. Now not havin' tits as fine or as big as yours, I can't even imagine how bad that shit stings ... But I don't wont to neather.
- Budd: Now I know when it comes to a rock salt burn, you're feelin' pretty much like a expert 'bout now. But truth be told, you ain't felt all rock salt's got to offer till you took a double dose in your backside.
- Budd: That gentled ya down, didn't it? Yep ... ain't nobody a badass with two barrels of rock salt dug deep in their backyard.
- Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)
- ... An adult human being contains about 250 grams of salt, which would fill three or four salt-shakers, but is constantly losing it through bodily functions. It is essential to replace this lost salt.
... Salt is so common, so easy to obtain, and so inexpensive that we have forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human history.- Mark Kurlansky, "Introduction. The Rock". Salt: A World History. Penguin Books. 2003. ISBN 9780698139152. (496 pages; 1st edition 2002)
