Monday, June 11, 2012

The Salts of Darlington

The subject of today's essay is the vessels we use to hold salt.  As I wrote in last week's post, we do not shake our salt at Darlington House, but rather we pinch it and sprinkle it with our fingers.

A Regency-era cut-glass salt cellar

Although we have a collection of small silver spoons to scoop up salt from our cellars, we gave up using them years ago.  Too fussy and "genteel," in my view.  Besides, I like using my fingers to pick up the perfect amount of salt to season what I'm eating or cooking.

A jumble of unused silver salt spoons

At table in our dining room at Darlington we mostly use cut-glass salt cellars.  Some of them are from the Regency period, and some of them are later, in the Regency style.


We have them in various shapes and sizes.


We have other salt cellars, too, some of which are made of Sheffield silver . . .


. . . and some of which are made of mercury glass.


Boy found this tall mercury glass footed salt that we sometimes remember to use.


At our kitchen table we use heavy glass cellars for "every day."



We also use an antique horn pepper and salt cellar, from time to time.


I found this little milk glass chicken-in-a-basket salt cellar in one of the cabinets at Darlington House after we bought it.  It was left behind by the previous owners, the Procters.  I like to use it at breakfast.


For cooking we have glazed earthenware containers to hold different types of salt.


We fill our cellars with a variety of salts, including fleur de sel, kosher salt, and assorted flavored salts.


Tell me, Dear Reader, do you pinch or do you shake?

Photographs by Boy Fenwick

44 comments:

  1. We grind, spoon and never sprinkle - pinching only when at the stove. There's nothing like a crystal salt.

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  2. Cornish rock salt bashed in a pestle and mortar, transferred to a salt cellar and always pinched and sprinkled. Love your horn salt cellar.

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    1. Pestle and mortar, now that's an excellent idea for crushing heavy salt. RD

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  3. Oh my! How lovely! My sister would probably sell one of her children for the Mercury glass salt cellars!

    Although, I grew up with salt cellars, I can't remember what they looked like. I think they must have been cut glass. We did use mother of pearl spoons with them. I remember those very well.

    I do not currently use salt cellars, my sister keeps that tradition alive.

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  4. I have some silver and cobalt salt cellars, but I mostly use salt in cooking, so i pour it in my hand and sprinkle from there. it's so humid here in the mid-atlantic, that it clumps when/if you leave it out.

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    1. Ah yes, the cobalt-lined salt cellars. I forgot about them. We have a silver and cobalt mustard pot that we bring out every now and then. RD

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  5. I love salt cellars-& when I indulge-I pinch. A lovely collection. pgt

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  6. We are pinchers in my house. I have a few antique cellars but our everyday salt is a small blue and white dipping bowl.

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  7. We pinch and sprinkle from a variety of small containers -- Chinese bowl; black glass jar; salt-glazed ceramic -- mostly Kosher salt. There are a variety of salts in the spice cabinet including my favorite Maldons hauled back in my suitcase from London. In the summer when we have so many fresh vegetables for salads or to grill I love a sprinkle of salts infused with herbs especially Eatwell Farm's Rosemary salt with its base of French Atlantic Grey Sea Salt. Funny thing.....I have a germ-phobic sister-in-law who is a little horrified when we use fingers to pinch and sprinkle. Even a reminder that salt kills "germs" hence it's function as a preservative won't quite satisfy her.

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  8. I use maldon sea salt which I keep in just a pyrex container with blue rubber lid - moves from kitchen to table that way. Not very pretty perhaps but it works for me!

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  9. Emmaleigh, there were some cut glass salt cellars, but the ones I remember using most are the little Chinese porcelain ones with lids. I'm planning to steal one from Mother next time I visit. ;)

    I love the mother-of-pearl spoons. They're fragile but so lovely.

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    1. Oh yeah! I had forgotten about the Chinese salt cellars with the matching pepper thingies! Did Mom get them all or did she split them with Auntie?

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  10. Dear Reggie,

    There is nothing "below the salt" about your marvelous collection of salts!

    So happy to see these little jewels have not been relegated to obscurity (such as the salt spoons have been - and I agree with you on that point), and provide such a stylish note to Darlington's dinner table.

    The Regency glass salts are particularly breathtaking, as is the Sheffield pair.
    I wonder how many models of glass salt boats were produced in Regency England and Ireland (I have a small collection but none of my examples duplicate yours, although all are similar in form and cut).

    Which of the ones you show examples of in your photo essay do you believe to be "in the Regency style"? I'd be curious to learn as not much written or pictorial information is available.

    Again, thank you for sharing your wonderful collection. Viewing them perked up my Monday morning.

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    1. The top pair of cut glass salts are, I believe, later. The top left are, I think, Edwardian and the top right are later Victorian. The bottom singles ae Regency.

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  11. We commited "pinchers"...however, with the exception of when we grind an extremely coarse salt. We are fortunate to have access to a variety of salts. One of our favorites is a LAKE salt (rather than a salt from the sea). The lake salt has a natural buttery flavor which is divine on popcorn and eggs.

    Dwayne in Raleigh, NC

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  12. You are men of infinite refinement. I just pour the stuff out of the box.

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  13. I'm a pincher, love your silver salt cellars with the little ball feet. Apparently as a toddler I threw my mother's dark blue glass salt cellar inserts against the wall for the pleasure of seeing them break. I have improved somewhat since then.

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    1. It'slike Christmas ornaments, I suppose...how much pressure can I apply before they break?

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  14. I provide the spoon, I have to say, but if it's just we two we grind. And it must always be sea salt. Yes, the man in the antique shop who told us he was relocating to Hudson, New York to whom I dropped the inevitable name, "Ah," he said, about yours, "a beautiful house!"

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  15. I love your collection, beautiful and utilitarian.

    I use a salt pig (yes, horrible name) on my range filled with sea salt...grab pinches while cooking. It's an open face, bell shaped 'holder'.

    I also love, albeit modern, but LOVE my Puegot salt and pepper grinders for the table (from ?Williams Sonoma) So many guests have purchased a set after visiting.

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    1. I like the name "salt pig." We got our Peugeot at W-S too...

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  16. goodness, Reggie! this post gave my blood pressure a boost. I wholeheartedly agree, the cellar spoons are an unnecessary concern for convention. a pinch is perfect.

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  17. We pinch as well!Love all your vessels.......I too have a few.I didnot know the small chicken with cover was for salt!Makes perfect sense however.I sell those when I come across them at my little HEN HOUSE.Now, I know thanks to YOU!

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  18. I'm a shaker, using a 19yr old Resident Dining Services issued salt shaker from college. About the only thing I put salt on is pospcorn, and the shaker is almost dry. I do have a swan shaped salt celler plus spoon - I just don't know where it is! I'll probably try to find a pretty new shaker somewhere.....

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  19. Would love to be able to pinch , but here in the Deep South, after about 3 hours in a salt cellar,the salt becomes un- pinchable - I do however pinch at the stove using a small glass covered sugarbowl I have equiped with one of those little moisture absorbing silica things buried at the bottom

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  21. We do both but I certainly don't have the lovely and varied collection of cellars that have!

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  22. I was so happy to see that little chicken! I've had one for years that belonged to my husband's family and had no idea what it was used for. Now I know and will use it accordingly, thanks for the fun post.

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  23. Dear Reggie-


    I shimmy and shake. I am at the moment rather fond of white Pangasinan salt and Himalayan salt. On a salad, sublime.

    fondest to you, DIANE

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  24. The shovel-tipped salt spoons work more efficiently than the round ones, on the same principle as the sugar shovel.

    Pinching can be the most accurate way to distribute salt, but closed-top shakers can provide some defense against high levels of humidity.
    --Road to Parnassus

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    1. Hello Parnassas, When I went to school in England for a year, I was fascinated to see how the English salted their food. Most used salt cellars with little spoons. Instead of using the spoon to distribute the salt on their food, as is the custome here in America, they would use it to deposit a small mound of salt on their plate, and then dip their forked food into it, one mouthful at a time. Seemed a bit of a production to this Yank! RD

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  25. And for a view of some contemporary salt cellars, take a look at these wooden birds by Tom Hill at Velvet DaVinci Gallery in San Francisco.
    http://www.velvetdavinci.com/show.php?sid=150

    I grind or pinch, depending upon the salt. I find shaking is too inaccurate.
    xox Camilla

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  26. We pinch as well, from a repurposed sugar bowl. If we have company I'll add a stray demitasse spoon. With it, a one-handed thumb-action pepper mill.

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    1. Hello David, Is the pepper mill an electric one, or are you able to grind it with your thumb only? Reggie

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  27. I love the silver boat shaped dishes. Do you have corresponding mustard pots for your salts?

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    1. Hello Lord Cowell,
      Yes we do have mustard pots, but we do not bring them out routinely with our salts, a custome that I recall from my days in boarding school in England. We have anearly 20th cenury silver mustard pot with a cobalt glass liner, a contenporary glass one from William Yeoward, and an early 19th century drabware one that is my favorite. RD

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  28. Growing up, we used a shaker/grinder for casual family meals. For anything else, my mother used tiny silver salt and pepper shakers at each place setting. My grandmother, however, used crystal salt cellars with tiny crystal and silver pepper shakers at each place setting. The salt cellars had silver salt spoons. At my table, we use a shaker/grinder left to my by an aunt. Although I did inherit my grandmother's cellars and shakers, I don't use them for casual dining.

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    1. Hello Bitsy,
      We, too, mostly shook and ground when I was growing up, with the vessels influenced by the formality of the occasion. It is only in my middle age that I have come to prefer pinching my salt, versus shaking it. RD

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  29. I come from a long line of "pinchers" and don't think I've ever owned a shaker- they are wholly impractical as far as I'm concerned. I must say, though, that I am currently lusting after a set of Artichoke form silver salt shakers and pepper grinders- gorgeous, but so expensive I may have to take out a mortgage to bid on them. If I'm successful, I may just change my lifelong aversion to the shaker.

    By the way, for you would be pinchers, William Yeoward makes some really attractive reproductions of the Georgian originals.

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    1. Magnus, What a pleasure it is to find your comment after a much-too-long absence! I am familiar (or at least think I am) with the silver artichoke shakers you mention. Loveliness, indeed. So lovely, in fact, that one needn't actually use them if one is a pincher; their beauty as objets de vertu is sufficient reason to desire (and justify) their ownership. RD

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  30. Reggie,
    Pinching or shaking, such a marvelous topic to ponder. We "shook" for years but now we "pinch" from a lovely wooden bowl that seems to keep the fleur de sel just right. It is next to the olive oil and the vinegar and pepper mill.
    I have a silver salt shaker but salt has taken it's toil. One has to empty and re-fill....polishing in between housing the salt. I much prefer the pinch the finest salt.
    pve

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  31. I inherited from my mother perfectly beautiful salt (little silver footed dishes...beautifully decorated with little spoons to match. (lovely etching on the outside; and little blue glass liners on the inside..... All the lovely formal things I passed on to my daughter who lives here......and, Reggie, is the only one in her age group I know of who entertains formally; in her beautiful dining room using all my mother's things (that are what many people feel; as you have quoted"ridiculous")
    Perhaps they are; however, I will always appreciate lovely entertaining with lovely old things!

    (She and her husband also have at least one "bash" for 250 people outside at their house for all ages.!)....barbeques....sports......the whole casual shebang.......every Memorial Day! babies to great-grandparents....and they all love it!
    I find this the best of all worlds (not biased at all)! HA!

    Well, you , of all people can imagine how fun and heartwarming it is for me to see all those familiar "formalities" "amenities"! I LOVE IT!!
    Those traditions.......remind me of an earlier time......when my mother had formal dinner parties every Friday night!

    The funny thing about the little salt spoons: (I think I had 18 or so; and she still has them)

    In the early eighties some friend of a friend came to a dinner party at our house in Pasadena.....a sit-down dinner; and whispered in my ear.......

    "May I buy all those salt spoons?" I said; (completely bewildered by the entire question and all of it!) "Oh, no! They were my mother's and they all match the little salt bowls. Why would you ask?"

    "He said; I can't find enough of them....they are just perfect for cocaine!" I nearly fell off my chair!

    Now, Reggie. Pasadena California is about as "Eastern Conservative"
    as it gets here. (I even went to Prep School in Massachusetts....not a match) (I have only ever "seen" cocaine 4 times in my life; and each time is a funnier story than the one before!)
    I damn near keeled over! No wonder they are hard to find! Hang on to them!
    You may make a killing on ebay!

    I love your blog so much!

    Penelope

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