Buying salt

When we were still living in corporate accommodation in The City (London's financial district), we had a kitchenette in our unit, so we tried to eat in as much as possible. Of course, that required buying groceries and, when you're starting from scratch, you have to purchase every single staple item as it's required. There's nothing worse than being right in the thick of a recipe and realising that you don't have any cumin. Don't take your pantry for granted. Everyone, go give your pantry a grateful and approving look. I'll wait here.

We don't cook with heaps of salt, but we still use it, so it went onto the grocery list one morning. I didn't think it would be so difficult. Our closest grocery store happened to be attached to our corporate flat, so I scoured the meagre aisles hunting down salt. Given that I was still so new at visiting British grocery stores, I took my time - many of the brands I am used to just don't exist here, or if they do, they've been repackaged for the UK market. Tricksy, tricksy products.

Upon finding the herbs and spices, I thought, "Well, here we go; salt, I'm coming to find you!" But I didn't find the salt. Undeterred, I thought I might have better luck with the baking supplies. I rounded the corner and found everything but salt. I gave up and left. We cooked without salt for a few more days. Not one to handle my defeats well (and also obstinately stubborn when it comes to asking a shop clerk for assistance), I returned to the site of my previous defeat and gave the store such a thorough once-over that I'm sure the security guards had me pegged as a shoplifter waiting to happen. I was rewarded by finding the salt tucked away at the end of an aisle, near a support pole, practically obstructed from the desperate eyes of salt-seekers. I can only assume it is the one remaining survival technique employed by salt.

Apparently wanting to buy a small amount of salt is next to impossible. I might as well have asked for six different varieties of sugar, individually packaged in one cup portions, because that would have been possible. Small amounts of salt, however, are out of the question, unless you're going to cruise all the fast food joints in the area lifting salt packets from the condiment stands. Maybe it was like this in Canada too and I just didn't notice because we'd had our box of salt for so long, it became a member of the family, only without a birthday.

On the plus side, my massive bottle of salt cost me 39p (that's $0.62 Canadian). 750g. Nearly a full kilo, for less than the cost of a chocolate bar. I simply do not understand, but I do know that we'll have salt for years and years. I'll be handing this salt down to my children and telling them fanciful stories about how I had to leave the house and go to a store to buy this salt with actual money (apparently I'm assuming that by the time I get around to actually making use of my reproductive system we'll have grown beyond a paper-based currency. Stop crying, mom.).

And because photos are fun, here's my salt beside a reasonable sized salt shaker:

See? Free running, even. Whew, that's my conscience cleared that the salt wasn't kept in captivity.