SALT

SALT is a mineral and so ubiquitous that until recently salt hadn't even bothered to be gendered. It was like water, which used to be gender-neutral but now has as many cultural associations as well, arugula.

Purchasing salt was once easy. You had one choice, table salt, though there were often multiple brands. If you did have a choice it was between iodized and non-iodized. This is disregarding specialty salt, like pickling salt or salt for the front stoop. LaRousse Gastronomique recommends a refined table salt and eschews impure salts that have any color other than white.

Recently, though, salt has become a hot commodity. People are no longer tied to simple fine, white table salt. They desire gourmet salt. Right now Sea Salt or Fleur de Sel is fashionable both for male and female gourmands. Although closely associated with gender, class is the larger marker associated with salt. The American gourmet salt craze has problematized historic perceptions of salt.


For example, common table salt has become so common that it has tipped, and is now moving toward the uncommon. It is now a signifier of an unenlightened dining table. Kosher salt has usurped the place once held by the ubiquitous salt shaker. Grey and pink sea salt, artisinal salts, and perfumed salts, are all gendered as feminine. French fry salt, Lowry's Seasoned Salt, and little packets of salt from McDonald's are are gendered as male, and specifically heterosexual male. Despite the current hipster craze for retro cocktails like the Bloody Mary, the universally loved celery salt maintains its mid-century reputation, reinforcing not a gender-neutrality, but instead re-inscribing an unyielding gender binary.