These
are salt cellars, rightside and upside down.
The one
on the right I acquired many months ago at a garage sale and thus found out
what it was: its use is not obvious! The little hole in the bottom is where you pour in the salt to fill the
cellar and it goes in with surprising ease. It only comes out if you shake it a certain way.
A month
or so ago I added new salt, a gray French salt (wonderful!) and thought I had
hopelessly and forever clogged the cellar because that kind of salt tends to be
a bit moist and I could not get it to shake out as before. Well, darn.
Then,
two weeks ago, on way to the Tuesday Fernwood Market, I suddenly decided to
take the salt cellar there because a potter had been showing up with his
(gorgeous) wares; I planned to ask him to make me another.
He had
never seen such a thing, and was a bit puzzled as to just how it had been
formed.
Sitting
with the Knitting group another potter joined us and she said the same about
the salt cellar. Then – a fellow
Knitter took one look at it and said she had bought one just like it for a
friend of hers. On further questioning
she said it had been years ago. In
Calgary. Double darn.
And as
I was explaining why I was sighing, she took it, gave it several up and down
shakes while cupped in the palm of her hand, and the salt came sprinkling
out. It wasn’t clogged at all: I had just been shaking it wrong, or at least
inefficiently!
A week
later, at another garage sale, I came across the one on the left. "We have
no idea what…….." the seller began but stopped as I did a demo shake
and, sure enough, salt came out onto my hand.
The
next day I came across the one in the next pictures. But I think this one may be for sugar, the hole being
bigger. I have put sugar in it –
cinnamon sugar for sprinkling on toast or fruit salads, and it works quite
fine, if a bit lavishly.
Now I
am curious as to the history of such unusual vessels………..