A spice is of vegetable origin used as a seasoning. Salt is a seasoning when its on the dining table.
Now before you all say who gives a shit?..would any of you tell me if salt in general usage is called a spice?
No. It is a seasoning and a preservative, not a spice.
My dictionary also cites: Something that gives zest or relish.
So, while salt is not a spice in the sense that it is derived from vegetable origin, it is a spice nonetheless.
I would call salt THE spice.
Even though little girls are made of sugar and spice…I would think sugar whose source is of vegetable origin, cane or beets, certainly adds zest and/or seasoning. So I think it would be a spice…and little girls are just made from spice??
No, no…that’s melange…
I’m pretty sure Col. Sanders considered it one of his “11 herbs and spices.” Maybe three or four.
Regarding the origin of the product name “Spam”: It’s a combination name of “Spice” and “Ham.” The spice? NaCl.
So Hormel thinks it’s a spice.
I say no.
A spice is a flavoring agent (for lack of a better term) derived from plant roots, seeds, fruits, or anything else that is not leaves. If it is from a leaf, then it’s an herb.
Salt is a rock, therefore not a spice, but a seasoning. Sometimes black pepper gets lumped in as a seasoning as well, since adding pepper is often added with salt in a seperate process from adding the spices, and because it sits with salt as the two seasonings on the table.
In common parlance, at least, it’s a spice - no one can say that English is logical.
While it doesn’t address the OP directly, it just seems like we ought to add a link to the Master’s Words. Er, by implication, Uncle Cecil agrees that it’s a spice.
You must have missed this parenthetical remark in paragraph 3:
Your link to the Perfect Master is of course valuable evidence. But in view of ftg’s post, I’d expected the column to be the one on Spam. To wit:
It is, of course, obvious that Cecil cannot contradict himself; that is a tenet of Cecilianism. But one hopes that he would deign to clarify the apparent paradox in his two responses regarding the putative spiceness of salt.
The Spice is the Worm and the Worm is the Spice!