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Home » Saltshaker-gate and salty memories

Saltshaker-gate and salty memories

The New Neo Posted on by

Do we really need to talk about Trump’s mega-salt-and-pepper shakers?

Apparently we do, with visuals.

Trust the press to uncover the pressing issues of our time.

Trump’s a strange and unusual man who does some strange stuff. Maybe he likes having the biggest salt shaker around. It wouldn’t surprise me. Or maybe it’s something the staff does, and he doesn’t even notice. Or maybe he uses a ton of salt.

Hey, I know what – let’s appoint a special prosecutor to discover what going on here!

I’m writing about this only because it made me think of two things. The first is that Jimmy Carter made a show of carrying his own suitcases to show that he was just a regular guy, with no imperial trappings (although if you believe this, his bag was virtually empty and he made agents carry the heavy stuff). I can’t say that Carter was a better president for it.

The second thing the story made me think of was the salt cellars of my youth. When I was little, my parents would sometimes host relatively formal dinners. Thanksgiving was one of the occasions, for example, although not the only one. For those dinners, the table was set much more elaborately than usual. Not just the use of the good china and good silver, or several sizes of crystal goblets, but also little individual crystal salt cellars with tiny silver spoons.

I can’t find a photo that matches the ones we had, but this is close (the two middle ones in particular):

My mother’s family had been quite wealthy back in the 1800s, and I’m pretty sure these had been inherited from them. The salt cellars harked back to a much more elegant and formal time, and I absolutely loved them. Somewhere they still exist, although maybe not all twelve. Do I have them, in storage, along with the gorgeous crystal glasses? Does my brother? I don’t know.

But what I do suspect is that my son and his wife will never want any of it. Will anyone? I know, I know; sell them on eBay. But that would mean going into the storage unit (I have a small corner of a friend’s) finding them, unpacking them, dealing with them. I’m really not keen on it.

The crystal glasses, by the way, were also quite old. I have no idea exactly how old, but again I believe it was the 1800s. They were made of super-thin crystal that had a very delicate and unusual cut design in it. You could dip your finger in the water and run it along the rim and make the glass sing, and the different sizes and amounts of water would create different notes.

Great after-dinner fun.

Comments

Saltshaker-gate and salty memories — 41 Comments

  1. Check out Ben Franklin’s glass armonica on YouTube, and you’ll see how the crystal sounded.

  2. “You could dip your finger in the water and run it along the rim and make the glass sing.”

    That’s the standard test for crystal… Sometimes they make glass that looks like crystal, but if it doesn’t “sing”, it isn’t crystal.

    I have some I bought in Germany years and years ago. At this point, I don’t think any of my kids are interested.

  4. Salt shakers: Get a life, leftists.

    Old china and crystal: I have some from my grandparents’ wedding gifts ca. 1910. I don’t think my children will want it. It can’t go in the dishwasher.

  5. There has been a suggestion that the different sizes are related to security. There was a rumor about an attempted poisoning at the time of Trump’s early visit to Bethesda. Anybody who has ever read, “Eleven Blue Men,” knows about salt shakers.

  6. Tell your son that this is part of his family’s legacy and hopefully he is proud enough to keep them, to in turn pass them on to his child/children.

  7. Sometimes we must be a placeholder for those who have not yet arrived.
    In the meantime, use your lovely things and take pleasure in them. If your son and his wife see how much you enjoy these pieces of your heritage, then it’s quite likely they too will come to appreciate them.

  9. individual crystal salt cellars with tiny silver spoons

    Aha! I have my maternal great-grandmother’s sterling silver table service for 12. I always wondered what the little bitty mismatched spoons were for; I imagined they were baby-food spoons that got mixed into the set.

  10. I have my great grandmother’s tiny square crystal salt cellars, four of them, which I have only used once. My mother bought me the little salt spoons to accompany them which I later used came out of obscurity during the cocaine era as “classy” self-serve items.

    I also have a large ceramic salt cellar that sat on the back of my mother’s stove and she used a “pinch of salt” as necessary as do I from the same cellar.

  11. I bet there was a lot of shrinkage of salt and pepper shakers at various White House luncheons and dinners. The small ones can be bought in bulk relatively cheaply. It would be a tad more difficult to snatch the President’s larger set. I have heard that it was common for items on Air Force One to, um, disappear after flights with members of the cabinet, the press, and other passengers. Perhaps our President is keeping closer tabs on White House losses.

  12. I agree with Mike K that there is probably a security issue with this stuff. And it could also be a health issue – is it salt or a substitute of some type to lower blood pressure, etc?

    With respect to the old family stuff – I love to figure out how to use these items in these modern times! I use glass items for many tasks – I have a pickle dish by my computer that I use for my computer glasses. Those little salt cellars – I use them to hold my daily meds. Larger glass dishes hold fruit and other items. I consider it to be more elegant and easier to keep clean.

    I found out that my mom’s china is actually dishwasher proof, so I am using those dishes. Waterford crystal – why not. The “good silver” – again, why not. It makes me feel better and I might as well enjoy using them. When I am gone, then the family can decide what to do with them. I also use “real” napkins, handkerchiefs, and dish clothes since they are actually more environmentally health. And, when you do only one hot water cycle per week they are better than paper.

    I think that some of us “older folks” may be more environmentally cleaner than the younger kids.

  13. One speculation I saw at Red State involved Classy Etiquette — which, we know from the Obama years, is not a specialty niche of the Left —

    https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2019/12/07/impeach-the-salt-shakers-are-too-big/

    John Borja
    @WordofJohnGuam

    Replying to @alx @businessinsider
    If using individual salt and pepper shakers, proper etiquette for formal settings on a rectangular table calls for smaller shakers to be above the charger plate of individuals and larger ones in the center (where POTUS is). Nice try trolls. #LearnYourselfSomething

  14. Mike K on December 7, 2019 at 4:25 pm said:
    There has been a suggestion that the different sizes are related to security. There was a rumor about an attempted poisoning at the time of Trump’s early visit to Bethesda. Anybody who has ever read, “Eleven Blue Men,” knows about salt shakers.
    * * *
    I didn’t remember that speculation from the time, and only two Google hits mention poison — one was a Whatfinger podcast show, and other one I didn’t recognize, but the source for it’s report was certainly familiar.

    https://yournews.com/2019/11/18/1316479/president-trumps-saturday-visit-to-hospital-not-protocol-for-routine/

    White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, in response to a CNN request for comment on Sunday, said: “We’re not going to get into security and movement protocols when it comes to the President, but as my statements said he’s in good health and it was a routine checkup as part of his annual physical. I’ve given plenty of on the record statements that were truthful and accurate — actively trying to find and report conspiracy theories really needs to stop.”

    Full Article Here

    FROM Infowars :

    WHITE HOUSE SOURCE: TRUMP MADE UNEXPECTED HOSPITAL VISIT TO TEST FOR INTENTIONAL POISONING
    Food tester was first rushed to hospital, and doctors believe there was exposure to time-delayed poison

    Does he really have a food tester?
    Maybe he really is a king-in-a-three-piece-suit after all!

    Doctors and staff reportedly found the byproduct of a type of toxin that’s very hard to detect and has a time-delayed onset of symptoms.

    Additionally, the toxin is a newer concoction that’s not typically tested for since it’s not well-known, according to the source.

    The president was later taken to the same facility where a battery of tests were performed to assess whether he had ingested the same toxin.

    There’s an ongoing investigation into the matter.

    During the Clinton administration, the chief chef was designated the “presidential food taster,” according to the former White House chef Walter Scheib.

    I’m adding this just because it was funny.

    And, according to a 2013 article by Business Insider:

    It’s very likely the President has a food taster, and despite criticism of the practice under President Barack Obama, the mystery anti-poison position apparently goes back to the days of Ronald Reagan.

    The recent taster controversy was sparked after a report of the President not eating at a lunch with Republican senators earlier this month.

    “Apparently he has to have essentially a taster, and I pointed out to him that we were all tasters for him, that if the food had been poisoned all of us would have keeled over,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told the Daily Mail after the lunch. “He did look longingly at it and he remarked that we have far better food than the Democrats do, and I said that was because I was hosting.”

  15. We still have the crystal glasses from our wedding, and one DiL prefers them because glass gives her a slight (allergic?) reaction.
    I guess she will get them when we are gone.

  16. I sometimes dispense my salt out of a glass jar that used to hold olives. For pepper, I did go out of my way to get a peppercorn grinder, but this is the closest I got to having something fancy. I’d accept a salt cellar, I imagine.

    Liz, how do your glasses end up tasting?

  17. MikeK: “There has been a suggestion that the different sizes are related to security.”

    I read that too, but I forget where.
    The speculation is that the large shakers were “known good” and available for use by POTUS, whereas the smaller ones were bought in bulk and had not been tested.

  18. At least he didn’t get two scoops of ice cream this time — or we would have heard about it.

  19. The salt cellars harked back to a much more elegant and formal time

    actually they harken back before elegant and formal times..
    and it depended on where you were at the table, who you were..

    ever head the term below the salt
    well on the higher end of the table was the good people, lords and ladies
    and below the salt on the table were the poor and bad, and servants

    below the salt:
    If someone is below the salt they are common or of low standing.

    The phrase dates back to the medieval table customs. During those times salt which was a valuable seasoning was placed in the middle of a dining table and the lord and his family were seated “above the salt” and other guests or servants “below the salt”.

    and

    In medieval England salt was expensive and only affordable by the higher ranks of society. Its value rested on its scarcity. Salt was extracted from seawater by evaporation and was less easily obtainable in northern Europe than in countries with warmer climates, where the evaporation could be brought about by the action of the sun rather than by boiling over a fire. This method was abandoned in England in the mid-1600s when natural rock-salt began to be mined commercially in Cheshire. Prior to that date the high value of salt was the source of the high symbolic status given to it in the day-to-day language that originated from England in the Middle Ages.

    At that time the nobility sat at the ‘high table’ and their commoner servants at lower trestle tables. Salt was placed in the centre of the high table and only those of rank had access to it. Those less favoured on the lower tables were below (or beneath) the salt.

    The term ‘salt’ is used for the container the salt was kept in as well as for the condiment itself. The ornate design and costly materials used for these salts was a reflection of the importance that salt was accorded. As early as 1434 the word ‘salt’ was used in this way, e.g. “A feir salt saler of peautre.” (A fine-quality pewter salt cellar). Strictly speaking, to be ‘below the salt’ was to be below the salt cellar.

    The phrase was in figurative use by the late 16th century, as this quotation from Ben Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels, 1599 shows:

    “His fashion is not to take knowledg of him that is beneath him in Cloaths. He never drinks below the salt.”

    of course i know too much and its all useless and without much use

    may i also point out its the name of a record album too?
    Below the Salt is the fourth studio album by Steeleye Span and their first after they joined the Chrysalis label. The album takes medieval influence and combines it with the band’s British folk rock style.

    personally i like the fun song “Royal Forester” and “Saucy Sailor”
    but its the “Gaudete” that really shows Maddy Priors vocal
    [Fairport Convention is another interesting group, now there are tons. and then there is my old (gone) friend, Gwydion penderwen who wrote pagan music and sang]

    Steeleye Span – ‘Gaudete’
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDc2FD-vy8M

    lyric sample (latin rock and roll?)
    Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
    Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
    Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
    Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
    Tempus adest gratiae, hoc quod optabamus
    Carmina laetitiae devote redamus
    Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
    Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
    Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
    Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
    Deus homo factus est natura mirante
    Mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante

    sample in english:
    He was born, Christ is born
    The Virgin Mary, rejoice
    He was born, Christ is born
    The Virgin Mary, rejoice
    The time of grace we have prayed
    Songs of devotion
    He was born, Christ is born
    The Virgin Mary, rejoice
    He was born, Christ is born
    The Virgin Mary, rejoice
    God has been made to Nature ‘
    The world has been renewed through the rule

  20. We had a cut glass bowl that Lazarus, my Norwegian Forest Cat, would put his front paws in, extend his claws, and run in place with his front paws, to make the bowl ring. He died in 2000, but that bowl is still, “Lazzy’s Bowl “

  21. Little bit of British social history, if anyone’s interested. My Grandmother used to pour salt from a shaker into a little pile on the side of her plate and season her food, forkful by forkful. It was a social marker because the habit indicated that you had grown up in a house with traditional salt cellars, which had crunchier grains of salt than the smooth flowing shaker salt, so an important point of etiquette for a girl from the rising middle class mixing with the Gentry.

  22. This pure speculation and silliness on the part of an MSM that is desperate to find something (anything!) to smear the president with.

    Mike K is probably right. It is probably how the Secret Service makes sure that they are not switched with ones that have not been under their control.

  23. These things on the photo do not look to me oversized. Trump is a big man with big hands, and such people find difficult to manipulate small objects.

  24. I’ll assume it isn’t for security reason, nor is it for special dietary needs. Let’s assume that Trump is “displaying his power with oversized salt and pepper shakers.”

    As, I’ve said before on other Trump issues, I was a very reluctant Trump voter; but, the more I watch him, the more I like him.

    So, if he really is doing this on purpose – I love it! He has the “little” people quaking in their collective hives over something so trivial as the size of salt and pepper shakers.

    They truly have lost their collective mind.

  25. Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove

  27. I suspect some elite lawyer can find an historical record showing how large salt and pepper shakers are high crimes and misdemeanors.

  28. Thanks artfl, haven’t heard Steeleye Span in many years.

    Slovakia and especially the Czech Republic have lots of fine cut glass. A bit export and a very nice gift. Lots of crystal goblets, even for water at coffee shops — was in a bookstore and started rubbing the glass to make it sing. Many places have the salt in bowls with spoons.

    Perhaps Melania is used to nice crystal and prefers them?

    It’s clearly stupid for the Dems to go crazy about.

  31. Caedmon, that bit about the little salt pile on the plate was very appealing to hear about in several senses. A “dash” (heh) of family history along with a “pinch” of lifting the curtain on the real import of seemingly tiny details – always a thing that warms my cockles.
    Art, the quote that you pulled out makes me wonder about the extent to which England was on the outside looking in when it came to the trans-Saharan salt trade in the medieval period.

  32. For me “Below the Salt” was the start of Steeleye Span’s remarkable six-album run of full-throated folk-rock, accent on the rock, which has never been equaled.

    The melodies and lyrics were usually authentic stuff pulled out of old books, but the band could rock like Jethro Tull (for whom they sometimes opened in the 70s) when they wished. Wonderfully inventive arrangements. Then there’s Maddy Prior’s soaring soprano… Sigh.

    Here’s “One Misty Moisty Morning,” from “Parcel of Rogues,” based on an old nursery rhyme:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SacU_M1seD4

    Such good-feeling music.

  33. i guess you missed my post above, with the same info..
    at that time i was in the SCA.. still have my chainmail
    helped build elronds forge.. and was a gardnerian pagan then
    oh, running naked through the woods drinking strange fermented fluids
    such fun… pensic war was a blast… but celebrating the dog star and living in a commune for a while was also.. that was new hampshire..

    so many of them are now gone..
    Thomas Delong was my friend… Gwydion Pendderwen..
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwydion_Pendderwen
    he died in a car crash the year i graduated high school

    Gwydion Pendderwen – The Lord of the Dance
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seR5njXN1wY

    and used to celebrate samhain at the magical childe
    that was run by herman my good friend too
    Herman Slater
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Slater

    talk about a changer.. some of the craft people then started as jewish.
    slater was one of them… but that was also the peak of the AIDs crisis
    things could get quite.. ahem.. carried away as long as youngins werent around
    quite the bacchanalia crowd…

    here is another i knew
    Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Glory_Zell-Ravenheart
    her husband Oberon Zell-Ravenheart

    it was a polyamourous group… 😉

    and margo adler was on her popcorn diet..

    great fun times..
    i miss them all…

  34. very sad news i just found my friend Caroll Spinney died..
    you know him as big bird of sesame street..
    i knew him when i was a hanger at master sound at kaufman studios
    they had the best xmas party… ever..

    oh, how sad i am now..

  35. Artfldgr:

    I am so sorry. He was brilliant; also did Oscar the Grouch, one of my very favorite characters.

  37. Slovakia and especially the Czech Republic have lots of fine cut glass. A bit export and a very nice gift. Lots of crystal goblets, even for water at coffee shops

    Marie Curie discovered Radium by studying the mountains of Uranium left by Bohemian glass factories. Much of Bohemian crystal has not just lead but also Uranium in the glass. Radium was a rare radioactive contaminant. The use of Uranium in glass has become rare as the Uranium become used to separate U 235, which is a very small fraction.

  39. I’ve read that the word “salary” derived from the fact that Roman legionaries were paid with salt.

    Regarding the main point of the story, the media doesn’t care about salt; what makes this newsworthy is that it’s Trump’s salt.

    Because a typical newscast for the MSM is : TRUMP ! TRUMP !! somebody is offended by something or other, TRUMP, TRUMP ? sex scandal, TRUMP, the end of the world… TRUMP !!!

  41. We inherited a set of old salt cellars, and I was fortunate enough to find little sterling silver spoons for them some years ago. Very stylish!

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