It's the flavor on our french fries, the buoyancy in our oceans.
Salt's crystalline beauty is the stuff of which we are made, in our cells, in our tears, in our blood.
It is one of the first and oldest seasonings and has been used to preserve and enhance food through the ages.
And here in the vast middle of the United States, it is used in vast quantities to douse icy streets.
From these snow-slicked streets, the salt kicks up off our car tires leaving a ghostly white residue that, if left undisturbed, can result in another use for salt: rusting our cars into car oblivion.
I'm not originally from Illinois, or from any part of the world that features winters so cold that a 20 degree day seems balmy. So this salty winter wonderland is new to me.
And it leaves me with salty unsettled feelings.
There is no doubt that the ice and snow are beautiful, transforming bare trees into modern art sculptures, morphing ponds and lakes into ice paintings. The sprinkled salt from the roads rises to leave flat, amorphous residue sculptures on my car doors.
I have found that, given enough icy days in a row, you can taste the salt in the air, tossed into the wind by snow plows and cars.
And yet, I can't help but feel a bit wistful at salt's current fate. Salt was once the currency of life, of budding human societies. Once upon a time, to have salt was to have life, success and hope.
Our word "salary" in fact comes from the Latin word for salt--hearkening back to when salt was used as payment in lieu of coinage.
Salt has been the basis of barter, the cause of wars. It held pride of place in countless religions.
Salt was power.
Now? Salt plays an indirect role in modern life. We douse our foods liberally with salt, much to our detriment. We use it to de-ice roads and to make materials such as plastic, rubber and aluminum.
However when most of us hear the word "salt", our minds don't call up the noble history of this tiny, crystalline mineral. We don't remember the wars fought over salt, or relish our luck at having salt readily available in any quantity, anytime we need it.
Perhaps salt has lost its charisma and power because it is no longer a challenge to acquire.
It is available in almost obscene abundance.
And maybe therein lies the cliched lesson:
sometimes you CAN have too much of a good thing.
