Just curious what’s the history on salt and pepper as table setting must haves? Did the Pilgrims do it?
Cecil Adams on “How did salt and pepper become the standard table spices?”
Bill Bryson’s “At Home” says that household tableware in the 19th century included tripartite cellars, with spaces for salt, presumably pepper, and a third spice. According to him, no one today knows what the third spice on offer would have been.
Bryson’s reputation is not really that of a serious historian, though, so take what he says with a grain of … well, nobody knows.
YMMV but amongst the PT family tableware the third cellar on the dining table was (indeed still is) mustard.
Agreed. I have a nice little collection of mustard pots, and it seems logical that, barring a better suggestion, the third cellar was for mustard.
The mists of unwritten antiquity, way back in the 19th century? It is sometimes hard to tell when Bryson is perhaps joking, and when he is just lazily making shit up.
Garlic?
Is salt considered a “spice”?
Probably best just to call it a “seasoning,” as it’s a mineral, and spices are usually defined to be of organic origin.
Posh?
I think it was salsa. Because people like to say “salsa”.