The Strange Journey of Salt Shakers (and Why Cultures Disagree on Holes)
Yesterday at work I was staring at the salt grinder in the lounge. It’s a pretty wooden one filled with high-quality sea salt that the guests can grind to their heart’s content.
If you remember any of my earlier pieces (or if I’ve ever cooked for you) you know I have a big obsession with salt and it got me thinking about salt shakers.
There are few objects more ordinary than a salt shaker though if you think about it.
It sits there on diner counters, fine dining establishments, picnic tables, and kitchen islands across the planet as an unassuming vessel of flavor. But like most everyday tools, the story behind it is far from simple. The salt shaker, it turns out, is a cultural Rorschach test, one that tells us what we believe about taste, restraint, and even sometimes class.
Because somewhere along the way, humanity collectively decided that one of life’s simplest choices (which holes belong to salt and which to pepper) should be a global disagreement.
A Grain of History
Before the shaker, there was the pinch.
Just a Pinch - my friend Janelle always says. She insists that sometimes all it takes is a small amount of salt to change an entire dish, and the same principle is applied to life.
For thousands of years, salt was a luxury that was so precious Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in it (the word salary comes from salarium, or “salt money”). People stored it in beautiful ornate cellars or tiny cute little boxes and took pinches by hand as needed. Pepper, on the other hand, came from trade routes stretching from India, making it rare and exotic.
The two spices shared tables but one would never think to have them share containers.
The invention of the salt shaker came much later than all of this, around the late 1800s if Google is to be believed (it normally is), when a few clever minds tried to solve a problem no one realized they had: salt clumps. Salt would find itself lumped together more often than not, and that pinch would require the pincher to rub their fingers together in the process.
Early versions were awkward sometimes it had holes too large or salt too moist, but then came Morton Salt’s famous anti-caking agent in 1911, and suddenly, the modern shaker was born.
“When it rains, it pours,” is the famous saying I always tell myself when I’m working hard on things and it feels like I’m getting nowhere, and for the first time in salt shaker history, it really did.
Salt vs. Pepper: The Hole Debate
Now here’s where things get weird, so buckle in and enjoy the ride with me.
In the U.S., the salt shaker usually has fewer holes than the pepper.
In the U.K. and many parts of Europe, it’s the opposite.
And in parts of Asia, you might not see a salt shaker at all, just a dish of soy sauce or miso, where salt hides in its mysterious liquid form that added a dash of umami.
So who’s right?
It depends on your philosophy of seasoning. Americans, who consume far more salt than pepper, give salt fewer holes to slow it down. Europeans, more pepper-loving and salt-conscious, reverse it.
And then there are those who simply pick the shaker that pours best and call it a day (arguably the most logical of us all).
There’s also a strange generational divide: many modern shaker sets are designed decoratively, assuming you’ll taste before seasoning. But go into an older restaurant, and the difference in hole size is often a quiet commentary on regional taste and public health campaigns that date back to the 1970s.
Even kitchen tools evolve with our habits and marketing pressure.
The Great Moisture Battle
Okay, I mentioned earlier about salt getting all clumpy and stuff, well let’s circle back to that.
Salt is hygroscopic, aka it absorbs water from the air.
That means your charming coastal shaker or rainy-season table companion may clog faster than your patience allows.
That’s why many old diner shakers hide a few grains of rice inside because the rice absorbs any of that excess moisture, keeping the salt loose and pourable. (A trick that’s as practical now as it was when your grandmother taught it to you.)
But even this simple fix reveals cultural nuance, because why would we all agree anyway?
In humid climates like Thailand or the Philippines, salt is often sold coarse or pre-dried, while in Mediterranean kitchens, salt lives in small open bowls, with no shaking required. I must admit this is how we do it in my house, a habit that the Culinary Institute of America sort of ingrained (puns are always intended here) in me.
In Japan, salt is sometimes roasted or even mixed with starch to prevent clumping.
Every region’s relationship to humidity, cuisine, and tradition shapes how it treats those tiny white crystals that help us all flavor our food a little more.
Form Follows Flavor
The salt shaker is also a lesson in design philosophy, because you know my mind always dives into the philosophical even when totally unnecessary.
In Scandinavian countries, shakers are often sleek and minimalist, like little elegant snow globes for the dinner table.
In Italy, they’re flamboyant and hand-painted.
In Japan, you might see intricate ceramic shapes or even wooden vessels with single, precise holes, each pour intentional, like a culinary haiku.
In the U.S., we mass-produced them into themed collectibles: cats, clowns, Christmas trees, Elvis heads. At one point, entire factories churned out millions of novelty shakers a year. If you can think of it, there’s probably a salt shaker shaped like it. (Somewhere, someone has a collection that could season an army. If that’s you, send me a picture, I desperately want to see it.)
Even museums have taken notice of the strange world of shaking salt into our food.
The Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, holds over 20,000 pairs, proof that our desire to personalize the mundane runs deep and we’ll try to make a profit off just about anything.
A Sprinkle of Science
Salt’s simplicity hides a complex chemistry, which I love talking about too much.
It enhances sweetness (have you ever shook salt on watermelon? chef’s kiss), suppresses bitterness, and unlocks umami, the hidden fifth taste. When shook over food (no matter the hole-size or shape), it draws moisture to the surface, intensifying aromas and textures. No wonder we evolved an almost primal attraction to it, it literally made our food taste more food-like.
That makes the salt shaker less a container and more a special secret key, a tool for unlocking flavor itself.
But like all tools, it reflects our culture, our health anxieties, and our need for habits passed down from our generational families. Whether we twist a grinder, shake a dispenser, or pinch from a dish, salt’s journey from ocean to tastebud is a story of both survival and style.
A Pinch of Perspective
So next time you reach for that shaker, notice it because you took three minutes to read this article.
Check out the number of holes, the way it pours, and the quiet argument it represents.
Somewhere between the grains and the grooves of that little glass bottle is a story about human ingenuity, vanity, and taste.
And don’t forget to live your life with with the pinch of salt philosophy, knowing that even the little things can change your whole life if you let them.
