posted by sooyup
on
Daily trivia
Prompted by the most trivial events, I occasionally remember things from my childhood which show just how ancient I really am. (And things which have no sexual content - so do feel free to move on.) Adding cooking salt to this week’s shopping-list prompted this recollection. Once or twice a year, an elderly gentleman, dapper in his dress and cultured in his demeanour, would appear on our street pushing a handcart. On it was what might be described as a pillar of salt. Hearing the old man’s cries of “solfa-sale” my mother would send me out with a few pennies to buy a solid block of the stuff, which he would saw off using an ordinary wood-saw, and wrap carefully in newspaper. My mother would then cut the block in half with the bread knife, and sit me at the table, where I would rub the two blocks together, watching the grains of salt form a white sand-dune on a sheet of newspaper. Unhygienic or not, that was how we bought salt in those days.
Prompted by the most trivial events, I occasionally remember things from my childhood which show just how ancient I really am. (And things which have no sexual content - so do feel free to move on.) Adding cooking salt to this week’s shopping-list prompted this recollection. Once or twice a year, an elderly gentleman, dapper in his dress and cultured in his demeanour, would appear on our street pushing a handcart. On it was what might be described as a pillar of salt. Hearing the old man’s cries of “solfa-sale” my mother would send me out with a few pennies to buy a solid block of the stuff, which he would saw off using an ordinary wood-saw, and wrap carefully in newspaper. My mother would then cut the block in half with the bread knife, and sit me at the table, where I would rub the two blocks together, watching the grains of salt form a white sand-dune on a sheet of newspaper. Unhygienic or not, that was how we bought salt in those days. 
