she's visiting ... and should learn to adapt. did you make her eggs? grab an extra salt packet next time you are out. see what she thinks about that.

I think a host or hostess should always make their guests comfortable - and family counts as guests too. How much extra space does a salt shaker take up?

Personally, I do not care for the practice of an open container of salt to be used with fingers. Maybe it kills bacteria, but what about dust and bugs and bits of food? Ew.

I prefer to use covered salt dispensers:

Keeping a small salt and pepper grinder to put out to make your guest comfortable wouldn't be a burden. I would not feel happy about sticking my fingers into a community anything to sprinkle the contents on my food. People are gross.

I have pink heart shaped ramekins with lids to keep salt and pepper in right by the stove for cooking, but I am the only one that cooks, period. My fingers are the only ones going in to grab pinches to season the food with.

I have 2 sets of salt and pepper shakers. Why 2? Well, because both sets were beautifully pink, and I couldn't decide. So I got both. I keep one set on the kitchen table and one by the stove next to the ramekins,and i typically use those when SO has larger groups of friends over and i cook for everyone. I bring them with the food for people to use,typically to the living room or outside picnic table as they would not all fit around my little breakfast nook. I would be very upset if i found them with their fingers in my salt or pepper heart...

I use pink salt in the shakers, kosher in the heart.....

My sister gave me a salt pig that looks like this, and it is covered and has a matching spoon.

We also have multiple salt grinders but do not have any salt that would be suitable for salt shakers.

I never use my fingers for salt.

Something like this is available off the shelf. This one is by McCormack:

I have to admit I wouldn't much like to stick my fingers in someone else's salt pig... or theirs in mine.

A stray finger up the nostril, then in your salt pig!!! Get a grinder LOL

My "salt pig" has a lid.....and I regularly offer it to a guest at an informal meal. However when I set a table, a salt and pepper set is on....and then almost without question someone will ask "do you have a pepper grinder?"...

Salt does kill everything....I have handled your meat.....and broken up the lettuce in your salad and sliced your tomatoes with my fingers....why would you object to pinching some salt from a common container?

If I sneeze on my fingers, then put them in your salt pig, would you be good with that? Salt may kill the germs, but snot is snot and I dont want it on my salt.

I tend not to eat other people's home cooking. You just don't know how gross they are.

Simple solution would be to set a small spoon in it. I don't think sticking fingers in it is really appropriate unless you are at the stove cooking with it and should have clean hands anyway. I wouldn't expect my guest to just stick their fingers in it. Really no need to buy a grinder, just use a spoon next time.

Mine also has a lid and a small spoon that sticks through in a little opening on the side of the lid.

I’m glad I asked this question. There are so many things that turn my stomach at other people’s houses, generally wrt food safety (like my inlaws who leave stuff out on the counter for hours on end) that I’d hate to make someone uncomfortable at my house. Grinders are cheap and small enough, maybe I’ll just go with the McCormick route for now. Regardless, no reason not to get one.

My objection to shakers is you never know what you’re going to get. Is it going to pour out or will you shake for a half hour one grain at a time? I’ve watched one too many person with poor vision douse a meal with salt they can’t see. As for spoons, I personally find them a clumsy way to try to get a light, even sprinkling of salt, and I’d image others not used to it would as well. This is why I like to pinch my salt, for me there’s no better way to control it.

If you stop and think a minute about where most of your food has been before it became your dinner, a finger pinch from the salt bowl would not seem to be such an issue.

I prefer to use a shaker because I feel that I have more control over the amount of salt and the distribution of it in the bowl or on the dinner plate. That is just a personal preference and not an absolute.

I wouldnt get too overly concerned about the one used at home but would not welcome one that was being used by the general public. And, you dont see them on the table at the restaurant, for good reason.

The most suspect things on a restaurant table are the salt shaker and the bottle of ketchup. I always try to use a napkin to pick up those condiment things on the table. Those things have been handled by so many people that it makes it almost a moot point to wash your hands before eating if you are going to pick up one of thsoe.

The salt pig at your house would not make the list of the top ten things to avoid.

I see no advantage to a salt grinder. Those grinders make me crazy and I dislike using them, for either salt or pepper. When I put pepper on my food it is because I really do enjoy ground pepper and I aboslutey loathe having to twist and twist only to get few grains of pepper. I dont have any grinders at my table for that reason. I have never met one that I like.

Why grind salt "fresh"? It is salt, a mineral, not a seed with aromatic qualities that might be at the best if just ground.

If you only knew what roads your food traveled before it became your food, you might think differently about many things.

One thing, though, to consider if you pinch salt while cooking is to avoid use your hands if you have handled raw meat. That can be unsanitary. The best is to avoid touching anything with raw meat contamination on your hands. That includes the salt shaker, as well. Raw meat is nasty.

“Why grind salt ’fresh’? It is salt, a mineral, not a seed with aromatic qualities that might be at the best if just ground.”

For control, not for freshness. I cut my addiction to salt years ago. Too much salt ruins a dish IMO. Yes you know your salt and your shaker but if you’ve got a free-flowing shaker and someone’s used to a half clogged one, whoa.

And yes, I wash my hands constantly when cooking, and when it comes to raw meats I track what I’m touching with what hand. When I run out of clean hands my forearms turn on the water and pump the soap.

food, yes I also pay very much attention to the spread of bacteria from raw meat on my hands and in the sink . Before washing something that had raw meat I will clear the sink of anything that might be there so that contaminated water does not flow all over everything.

We, too, have gotten used to lightly salted food. It was not something that I planned to do. It just came about as a preference and one amazing thing about it is that you sometimes will find subtle and complex flavors and pleasure that you would miss if salt was the first and foremost.

Sometimes, though, it really does need more salt.

Most restaurant food is way too salty and that is one reason that I dont enjoy eating out. I have lunch out somewhere and I am thirsty all day.

I wish I had a foot control on my kitchen faucets. I have never seen that in a kitchen but think it would be good to have.

There was a foot control that some people talked up years ago, but that was just an on and off switch, water flowed at rate and temp last used. I imagine these have become obsolete with touch faucets. Which have the same limitation.

I use a wee metal dish that is my salt pig and I'm the only one who uses it.

I don't salt my food at the table, neither did hubby. We had a salt shaker and pepper grinder, (the pepper grinder gets used regularly) the salt shaker never did.

Plus I use kosher salt and you'd shake the container like mad trying to get the larger flakes out of the holes. I have a box of table salt that I got eons ago. The only thing I recall using it for is mixing it with some baking soda to clean my sinks.

Gave up on trying to get just a pinch. SIL - the chef - gave me several metal "tasting spoons" that hold a little more than an 8th teaspoon of salt for a tiny white bowl, and one for a tiny clear bowl of sea salt, and two spoons go in a tiny green bowl for sugar (to differentiate easily). I agree that pepper needs to be freshly ground from a mill but the other seasonings don't "shake" out of anything properly. Tasting spoons as he calls them are listed on A*zon as demitasse espresso spoons.

I have a few small sets of shakers for setting a guest table. And the grinders. A salt grinder is nice to add just a dusting. Much more control. And they have a tighter seal so no clumping in humid weather. Himalayan pink is sold mostly coarse so they need a grinder or a spice grinder.

My small pig stack of three nesting, with a lid, lives at the back of the main prep area....with a small wooden spoon on top. I've never adopted the pinch to avoid a family communal habit.

Most chefs and test kitchens start fresh every day or cooking session.

I have no issues if the main cook in a home used the pinch method from a designated container but not if it is communal or an open container. So i get the hesitancy as a guest.

I'm also super aware when prepping and can use a wrist for the soap and faucet handle. Meat is prepped on its own board next to the sink away from the main prep next to the stove.

Yes salt is a natural preservative but it can take a while. It isn't instant. Salting fish takes about two weeks the traditional way depending on weather. Small debris who knows...maybe a few hours up to 24?, (just guessing). I realize one would have to be a very sloppy cook to contaminate a salt pig. Like taking it over near a chicken being prepped.

Prepping a chicken tonight for a dry brine i'll be smoking tomorrow, spice blends in tiny prep glass bowls, salads and slaw prepped, then sea bass prepped for tonight...deal with the chicken later in one swoop...spices put away. Mise en place prep bowls into the dishwasher...DH cooks in total chaos and makes a mess, lol. I don't want his sloppy pigs in the salt. We don't use much at all anyway.

When I do chicken, and most meats, I put some salt and pepper in a separate dish, then I'm not compromising the salt container, accidentally.

I really like my adjustable salt grinder - it can grind the salt extra fine for popcorn, and the lid also functions as a receptacle for the ground salt. I have a second one for pepper.

I don't use a shaker to season food while cooking. I either use a measuring spoon or pour the amount I want into my hand first. Steamy dishes can gum up shakers and grinders if you use them directly over the steam.