The Mystery of Salt

Something is wrong with me. I have been seen perusing the magazine aisle at Giant...picking out all the cooking related publications. Who am I? What have I become?

One magazine really caught my attention "101 Tips for Cooking" ~ hey, I need all the tips I can get! What a great magazine! I'm learning so much...like the difference between chili powders (Pasilla, Ancho, New Mexico, Chipolte and Cayenne). This is good information for me to have because I own each of these and I'm not sure which one to use when!



However, the most intriguing tip, I have say, had to do with salt. Yes, I'm learning there is a big difference between salts and how to use them. For instance, reserve table salt for baking. Now I have two salt pigs (yeah, that's what the professional kitchen-people call the little containers you keep salt in) by my stove. One with Kosher salt and one with course Sea Salt. (shhh...I keep the fine Sea Salt in my cupboard. I don't have room for three salt pigs!)

Oh how I digress...Salt, it's a mysterious thing. It was a high commodity way back when. At one time Roman soldiers were paid, in part, with a ration of salt called solarium (from the Latin word "sal" which means salt.) If a soldiers performance was not up to par, it was said that he's "not worth his salt." Later, when salt was replaced with an actual money allowance to buy the salt, the allowance itself was called a solarium. Eventually, solarium came to mean the wages themselves, and this led to our calling one's pay a salary. You are now ready for Jeopardy.

My magazine says, "Salt has the uncanny ability to make food blossom into their full flavors but often it must be used at just the right time. Boil two quarts of water in two separate pots . Put two teaspoons of salt in one and none in the other. Bring both pots to a boil and place a couple ounces of spaghetti in each pot. Cook, drain pasta and taste. The pasta cooked without salt tastes dull and flat, not quite itself. No amount of salt added to a sauce or the pasta after cooking can compensate. Pasta cooked in salt water tastes not of salt, but of wheat coaxed into full flower by the mildly briney liquid. No one knows exactly how salt does this, how just a pinch boosts the flavor of almost anything from ripe sliced tomatoes to complex sauces and even sweets."

It was then that I had one of those "light bulb moments." In Matthew (5:13), Jesus says "you are the salt of the earth..." WE ARE SALT OF THE EARTH, PEOPLE! I never got that passage before now! Jesus tells me I am salt of the earth ~ in some mysterious way, as I interact with people, exposing them to the transforming love of Jesus, they then have the opportunity to blossom into their full flavor, or purpose. How incredible is that??? It's beautiful, and a bit scary - that is a quite a task.

As I look at my life and the interaction with friends and family, how can I be the salt in their lives? Jesus calls us to do this. So that we live in a flavorful world filled with His love. Awesome.