Sometimes my wife puts a dish in front of me and I ask if she added salt. If she immediately returns to the kitchen I know she forgot, so I sigh loudly. Then she returns with a properly salted dish and apologizes.
"Roman soldiers were partly paid in salt. It is said to be from this that we get the word soldier – ‘sal dare’, meaning to give salt. From the same source we get the word salary, ‘salarium’.
Salt was a scarce and expensive commodity and its value was legendary. To sit above or below the salt identified precedence in the seating arrangements at a feast, according to one’s rank. Not to be worth one’s salt was a great insult. The Bible compliments some men as being ‘the salt of the earth"