Notes & Queries response: How did salt and pepper become the standard table seasonings?
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| image generated by Craiyon |
An unknown soldier of this era licks the loose red thread of what could have been a more serious wound, and surveys the field of battle in the aftermath of a victory, or else crouches down in the ferns, among the trees, as a remnant of a defeated force, hiding from the voices of those who would gladly add his name to the roll-call of the dead. He detects, in the congealing blood, the taint of the weapon that caused the injury – the same iron that he has perhaps witnessed being drawn from a bloom of slag metal and its own spongy cast-offs, either in a pit, or at the foot of a clay chimney.
He also tastes salt – the lifeblood of the sea – the crucible of his unknown origins. When salt is added to certain foods, it has been found to make the flavour better. His tribe use it to preserve meat and fish, extending the edibility of both. It is scattered over the heads of couples when they are joined in matrimony. During the ceremony, the priest offers up prayers that it will bring to bear the same powers of preservation upon the union of the man and woman who stand before him, as it does upon the flesh of animals.
Salt, in these times, can be produced by boiling seawater. Along a gnawed section of rocky coastline that is referred to as Fiscbryte (now buried deep in the mythology of our nation, and as lost to us as Camelot and Avalon) the waters are known to be particularly salty. Fish are witnessed exiting the briny waves for short periods, and crawling about on the land on tiny nubs that resemble the stumps of amputated limbs. The salt that is harvested here is formed into pillars over the span of generations, painted on in wet layers until these stout columns stand taller than men, and resemble the denuded trunks of trees. At night they hold the bright glow of the moon in their shiny crowns. A few are broken off their foundations and transported elsewhere. Several are taken to what will one day be known as Gownhill, where they are fashioned into a salt henge that is still present during the reign of King Henry VIII. The animals in the area use it as a salt lick. It is a popular royal hunting spot, offering an abundance of deer. Fist-sized nuggets of salt are quarried from what remains of the columns to serve the needs of the King's table. By the end of the reign of Henry's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I – the Henge has vanished from the landscape.
In the long-ago era of our unnamed warrior, iron meant death, but it could also be a precursor to life – the blade of a plough cutting a bloodless furrow into the soil, in readiness for the seeding of the ground. Salt had come to symbolise life – the bounty of the sea and the preservation of flesh from decay. Equally, it spelled ruin for any crop where it was scattered on the land. These two contradictory elements, upon which the world sometimes seemed to turn, found their union in the blood of men. Wasn't it King Arthur, or one of his forefathers, who had first drawn a sword from a block of salt?
The air of mysticism that had formed around salt brought it under the governance of the pagan priest caste, who controlled its production, distribution, and usage. They found unlikely common ground with the priesthood of the invading Roman armies, who also used salt in their rituals. The soldiers (Sal dares) of the occupying legions were paid partly in salt, though they are said to have disliked the British variant, which they said was less pure than true Roman salt. The wives and daughter of governors claimed that the salt of the island was the cause of premature wrinkles and therefore to be avoided. There were scandals involving merchants who were accused of cheating their customers by blending Celtic salt with higher quality salt produced elsewhere in the empire.
In Rome, the collegium of salters was a powerful entity exerting an influence in both the religious and political spheres, and playing a pivotal role in the shaping of the economy of the Empire. A 1st Century historian, ironically named Salvito, identified salt as the agent of the rust that would one day bring about the Autumn of the Empire.
Salt was not the only edible commodity to have transcended it's lowly origins and assumed greater cultural significance. At considerable expense, the Romans were shipping peppercorns from the western coast of India. The cost of importing the spice, along with its scarcity, made it an exclusive pleasure of the wealthy. Like salt, pepper was incorporated into religious ritual. The consumption of dried peppercorns was regarded, by the upper echelons of the priesthood, as a credible means purging the body of sin. St Condetius described peppercorns as cold under the touch, but giving off the prickle of hot coals when broken against the tongue, and inducing a short-lived, feverish elevation the temperature of the body. He was later burned alive, at the age of 43, for refusing to denounce his Christian god.
The relative expense of pepper, when compared to the cheapness of salt, was the source of a class division within the religions of Rome; one that endured the transition from the pantheistic echo of the cults of the Ancient Greeks, to the triumphant monotheism of Christianity. Among the lower ranks of the priesthood, salt was the great purifier and cleanser of the soul. The senior clergy resorted to handfuls of peppercorns as their preferred method of literally driving sin from the body, out through the pores in a glistening sheen of sweat. On the eve of Lent, it was common for bishops to parade the streets with a bag of peppercorns, that they would scatter into the crowds.
The Salters and Peppermens guilds were both active organisations within the framework of the Catholic church. They were continually conspiring against one another. On occasions, their clandestine activities would escalate into outbreaks of tit-for-tat killings, that could only be brought to an end by mediation. Within the church, salt and pepper were never placed on the same table, or even used to season the same dish. The guilds exist today in neutered forms that are predominately ceremonial, and closely monitored for any signs of radicalism.
It was King Henry VIII who can claim responsibility for the unification of the two condiments on the English table. A consequence of the separation of the English monarchy from the Catholic Church, and the separation of the heads from the necks of two of his wives, was the dissolution of the Salters and Peppermens guilds. To prevent their sympathisers from gaining a footing in the nascent Church of England, Henry subsidised salt and pepper, making both affordable and widely available to the peasantry, and overtime diluting their mystique with ubiquity.
I hope this is of help.
Salt, in these times, can be produced by boiling seawater. Along a gnawed section of rocky coastline that is referred to as Fiscbryte (now buried deep in the mythology of our nation, and as lost to us as Camelot and Avalon) the waters are known to be particularly salty. Fish are witnessed exiting the briny waves for short periods, and crawling about on the land on tiny nubs that resemble the stumps of amputated limbs. The salt that is harvested here is formed into pillars over the span of generations, painted on in wet layers until these stout columns stand taller than men, and resemble the denuded trunks of trees. At night they hold the bright glow of the moon in their shiny crowns. A few are broken off their foundations and transported elsewhere. Several are taken to what will one day be known as Gownhill, where they are fashioned into a salt henge that is still present during the reign of King Henry VIII. The animals in the area use it as a salt lick. It is a popular royal hunting spot, offering an abundance of deer. Fist-sized nuggets of salt are quarried from what remains of the columns to serve the needs of the King's table. By the end of the reign of Henry's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I – the Henge has vanished from the landscape.
In the long-ago era of our unnamed warrior, iron meant death, but it could also be a precursor to life – the blade of a plough cutting a bloodless furrow into the soil, in readiness for the seeding of the ground. Salt had come to symbolise life – the bounty of the sea and the preservation of flesh from decay. Equally, it spelled ruin for any crop where it was scattered on the land. These two contradictory elements, upon which the world sometimes seemed to turn, found their union in the blood of men. Wasn't it King Arthur, or one of his forefathers, who had first drawn a sword from a block of salt?
The air of mysticism that had formed around salt brought it under the governance of the pagan priest caste, who controlled its production, distribution, and usage. They found unlikely common ground with the priesthood of the invading Roman armies, who also used salt in their rituals. The soldiers (Sal dares) of the occupying legions were paid partly in salt, though they are said to have disliked the British variant, which they said was less pure than true Roman salt. The wives and daughter of governors claimed that the salt of the island was the cause of premature wrinkles and therefore to be avoided. There were scandals involving merchants who were accused of cheating their customers by blending Celtic salt with higher quality salt produced elsewhere in the empire.
In Rome, the collegium of salters was a powerful entity exerting an influence in both the religious and political spheres, and playing a pivotal role in the shaping of the economy of the Empire. A 1st Century historian, ironically named Salvito, identified salt as the agent of the rust that would one day bring about the Autumn of the Empire.
Salt was not the only edible commodity to have transcended it's lowly origins and assumed greater cultural significance. At considerable expense, the Romans were shipping peppercorns from the western coast of India. The cost of importing the spice, along with its scarcity, made it an exclusive pleasure of the wealthy. Like salt, pepper was incorporated into religious ritual. The consumption of dried peppercorns was regarded, by the upper echelons of the priesthood, as a credible means purging the body of sin. St Condetius described peppercorns as cold under the touch, but giving off the prickle of hot coals when broken against the tongue, and inducing a short-lived, feverish elevation the temperature of the body. He was later burned alive, at the age of 43, for refusing to denounce his Christian god.
The relative expense of pepper, when compared to the cheapness of salt, was the source of a class division within the religions of Rome; one that endured the transition from the pantheistic echo of the cults of the Ancient Greeks, to the triumphant monotheism of Christianity. Among the lower ranks of the priesthood, salt was the great purifier and cleanser of the soul. The senior clergy resorted to handfuls of peppercorns as their preferred method of literally driving sin from the body, out through the pores in a glistening sheen of sweat. On the eve of Lent, it was common for bishops to parade the streets with a bag of peppercorns, that they would scatter into the crowds.
The Salters and Peppermens guilds were both active organisations within the framework of the Catholic church. They were continually conspiring against one another. On occasions, their clandestine activities would escalate into outbreaks of tit-for-tat killings, that could only be brought to an end by mediation. Within the church, salt and pepper were never placed on the same table, or even used to season the same dish. The guilds exist today in neutered forms that are predominately ceremonial, and closely monitored for any signs of radicalism.
It was King Henry VIII who can claim responsibility for the unification of the two condiments on the English table. A consequence of the separation of the English monarchy from the Catholic Church, and the separation of the heads from the necks of two of his wives, was the dissolution of the Salters and Peppermens guilds. To prevent their sympathisers from gaining a footing in the nascent Church of England, Henry subsidised salt and pepper, making both affordable and widely available to the peasantry, and overtime diluting their mystique with ubiquity.
I hope this is of help.
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| image generated by Craiyon |
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