Speck Salt and Cold Slaw

... a modern day salt cellar ...
The British Museum has some ivory ones
 that are thousands of years old.
They were measures of status.
Now a person can have one for everyone at the table.

These are the best of times.

Derek came downstairs to ask what speck salt is.

I didn’t know.

At our house, the guys who are really interested in cooking have been figuring out the difference in iodized salt, coarse salt, pickling salt, kosher salt, crystalline seat salt, flaked sea salt, pink Himalayan salt, and rock salt.  And the list is only started.

I was surprise to hear of yet another kind of salt: speck salt. 

Derek cooks from recipes his mother wrote out for him: 3x5 white index cards. He brought the recipe downstairs for me to see, but by the time he got there he said, “You know, I am wondering if she means ‘put in a speck of salt’ when she says speck salt.  She might have just been in a rush when she was writing this down and thought I would know what she meant."

Moiya told me the same thing this morning: that she had run into trouble finding a recipe.  She could never find recipes for cold slaw.

That is what she has heard it called all of her life.  "My ears," she said.

For more on why this is called coleslaw I had to google the term. In short, cole means cabbage.  But there is an alternative spelling of cold slaw which was way back in the 1860’s – too early for Moiya to have come usage in any recipe.

 Food is fun, even when I am not cooking it.

Arta

Day 24 of The Best Hundred Days - Part II