In addition to the standard iodized variety, there is clay red salt from Hawaii; Celtic gray from the coast of Brittany; stone-ground, greenish salt from Bali in fine round crystals; bronze salt that has been smoked; and others types of salt in grains that are coarse and pyramid-shaped. There is, currently, controversy between those who swear by England’s slightly bitter, snowy Maldon flakes and the cohort (which include me) that prefers the silkier, more subtle fleur de sel from France’s Camargue region. In fact, salt connoisseurship is now such a popular gourmet game that at the justly celebrated Per Se restaurant in New York City, a salt tasting is a separate course on the Degustation menu.

For Jews, there is nothing new about the specialness of this condiment. It is declared sacred in many books of the Hebrew Bible. Here’s Levitius 2:13: “And every offerings of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering.” To this day, some people salt pieces of challah before they eat them on the Sabbath, and, at Passover, salt water, recalling the tears shed by slaves in Egypt, is the dip for parsley, lettuce, radishes, and hard-boiled eggs.

The attributes that make salt a symbol of steadfastness are not only its role as a preserver and purifier, and as an essential mineral, but its virtual indestructibility. Even if the crystals dissolve in liquid, they reform when that liquid evaporates. You might have witnessed this phenomenon after boiling pasta in well-salted water; afterward, chalky white spots remain on the stove top when the steam and water splashes have dried.

Then there is what’s known as kosher salt—but which should more accurately be called koshering salt. A mineral, salt is considered pareve as long as it has not been adulterated. Some brands of salt have a kosher symbol on the package only to indicate that nothing has defiled its contents. What makes this salt right for koshering meat and poultry is the size of the crystals. The object of koshering meat is to draw out blood, which Jews are forbidden to eat. If fine crystals were used, they would be absorbed into the meat quickly and draw in fluids. By contrast, coarse salt stays on the surface longer, leeching out the blood.

Much the same is true of pickling and dry curing. Salt preserves by drawing moisture out of living things, bacteria included, thereby killing them. That is why nothing lives in the Dead Sea. Also, coarse kosher salt is generally preferred by chefs because it is unadulterated. (Even iodized salt can add an unwanted chemical flavor to food.)

Given the spiritual importance salt has to Jews, and its usefulness in preserving many foods, such as salmon, herring, whitefish, corned beef, pastrami, pickled tomatoes, cabbage, and cucumbers, perhaps it’s no wonder we have developed a special taste for this flavor enhancer. That is fortunate up to a point. Salt—sodium chloride—has properties that enhance physical well-being, but if overeaten, it can cause physical harm.

Whether salt comes from the sea or a mine, it is essentially the same, though there are regional differences. “Nearly all solid salt deposits in the earth originally came from the sea,” explained Harold McGee, the Curious Cook columnist for The New York Times, a food scientist, and the author of On Food and Cooking. “Both mine and sea salts from different places will have different impurities that become insignificant when the salt is refined. Sea salt, derived from water that is allowed to evaporate in the sun, is not changed as to mineral composition. But it is in its biological composition, as living things such as fish, algae, and insects could be altered by heat and light.”

Sea and mined salt provided me with two of the most unforgettable food-related sights I have seen in my travels. The first took place many years ago on Avery Island in Louisiana. Home of the McIlhenny family and the site of their Tabasco production, Avery Island sits on deep salt mines, through the years leased to various salt companies. The first step that gave me pause was having to sign a waiver saying, in effect, that if I was injured in any way—say buried in a mine collapse—I would not hold anyone responsible. Then, fitted with a hard hat and stiff protectors that clamped over the tips of my shoes, I rode down in a elevator to the mine where we boarded a Jeep and drove through winding passages under the soaring gray-white caves that reminded me of medieval Carcassone late on a snowy evening.

Far less claustrophobic were the huge, flat, shallow pans of salt water evaporating in the sun along roads around Trapani on the Sicilian coast. Driving by and unaware of the sea salt processing, my husband and I first thought we were looking at huge wading pools filled with milk. A closer look made it plain what we were seeing and, since then, I have never opened a container of sea salt without a mental flashback to that glorious, first sight of salt-sea air.

If an ingredient as commonplace as salt has so many diverse and complex aspects, it’s daunting to imagine what we might discover by delving into the whys and wherefores of pepper.

Here, food as metaphor deals with bread, literally and figuratively the staff of life, and salt, a real and philosophical purifier. Bread and salt represent the practical and the spiritual and, together, are part of a common Sabbath meal ritual of pouring salt on a piece of challah after saying the Motzi but before it is eaten, following the admonition of Leviticus 2:13: “Never shall you suspend the salt covenant with your God. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.” That, more or less, will be the scope of this monthly column: food as it affects and touches various aspects of our lives. Our choices and preferences can reflect our aspirations or prejudices; changing attitudes and styles redesign the meals we read about and then hunger for.

On the practical side I will bring news of delicious things to eat, where to find them or, occasionally, how to prepare them. Some columns will relate to time-honored Jewish traditions concerning food and the changing world of kashrut.

On the philosophical side, there will be descriptions and explanations of food and how it figures into lifecycle celebrations primarily in cultures where wheat or rice are the sustaining grains, from the blessings over challah and matzo to the Christian Eucharist to the wedding cake that evolved as a sweet form of bread or oat cake that was to be broken over the heads of the bride and groom in 17th and 18th century Britain. In some Slavic countries a round, flattish loaf is topped with various toys indicating professions to be placed within reach of a toddler. The first toy he or she picks up is considered a forecast of the profession that will provide money for bread in the future.

Salt figures similarly in life and lore. In Japan handfuls are strewn across the mat as a sanctifier before every sumo wrestling match. Knock a salt cellar over at the table and you will have an argument with a loved one or even worse luck unless you toss some over your shoulder to ward off the evil spirits you have angered. Salt in the wound? Bad as far as pain goes, good as far as killing bacteria. For that is the property–the ability to kill living things, by dehydrating them–that makes salt an effective preservative and explains why nothing lives in the Dead Sea and why animal foods are koshered with a salting down. In ancient Rome, salt was so precious that workers were paid with it, or with coins entitling them to a ration of it, thereby giving us our word salary although hardly anyone would accept it as payment today, unless perhaps it was an exotic black, orange, pink, or green coarse sea salt for which tastings are held in cutting-edge restaurants and, by the way, how do such salts really differ in flavor?

For gourmands, salt is essential to flavor, and no less a respected chef than André Soltner, former chef-owner of the late-lamented Lutèce, once advised that salt must be in every single dish one prepares, even sweet confections and cakes. I forgot to ask him about coffee and tea.

What would we do without it? Or, as expressed in the New Testament, Luke 14:34, “But if the salt shall lose its savour wherewith should it be seasoned?” And do without it we apparently are expected to as control-freak chefs banish salt from the table, implying they know our palates better than we do. Perhaps they are unaware of the sensory science related to salt and how no two of us experience levels of it alike, something that will be a future subject here.

Though bread and salt undoubtedly will remain staples of Jewish cuisine, that cuisine is also changing rapidly. Centuries-old and honored observances such as kosher laws are being updated and modernized in many interesting ways. How and why such things occur–sadly or happily–and what they lead to is another subject for exploration.

Thirty years ago I would never have believed that kosher dairy restaurants would virtually disappear from New York and other large cities to be replaced by Israeli-Sephardic “dairy” restaurants. These serve light and enticing falafel and hummus, pita and baba gannouj, pizza and tabbouleh, instead of heavy and enticing cheese blintzes with sour cream, scorching hot mushroom–barley or cabbage soup, eggs scrambled with lox and onions, and baskets bursting with cascades of breads and rolls, fragrant with onions and veneered with sesame or poppy seeds. A younger generation intent on keeping kosher but looking for more spicy, diverting, healthful, and fashionable dishes are flocking to Indian vegetarian restaurants in urban areas. They are de facto kosher for their Hindu customers who do not eat fish, meat, fowl, eggs, or cheeses set with rennin, the acidic enzyme in rennet that begins coagulation of milk and is produced in a cow’s stomach.

Recognizing this growing market, many of those Indian restaurateurs now go the extra mile by employing a mashgiach and having separate hand sinks in the dining room to be used before saying blessings over the food. But how a novice navigates one of those menus will be the subject of a future column as will a few of the kosher Indian vegetarian restaurants around the country.

In a way, Jews might well have been the unwitting pioneers in what is currently celebrated as fusion cooking. Now, perhaps, a new worldwide Jewish cuisine is being born that, like the old Ashkenazic and Sephardic cookery, borrows from other cultures, fusing to modern tastes while still honoring their beliefs. But as butter and schmaltz give way to olive oil, no-fat sour cream stands in for the luscious high fat original, and croutons replace gribbenes, we are left with one important question: if heartburn becomes extinct, who will buy Nexium?

Anyone who’s been to a Jewish wedding has witnessed the ritual of the groom stepping on a glass. And most of us have seen hamsahs, the hand-shaped amulets often displayed in people’s homes or worn as jewelry. But how many of us have had a chicken killed on our behalf to ward off bad luck?

Nextbook editor Hadara Graubart’s ancestors came from Spain, via Turkey, and like many Jews who have traversed the globe, they picked up a few traditions along the way. In her family, it’s a short leap from hanging a mezuzah on a doorway to flushing handfuls of salt down the toilet. For this podcast, Hadara spoke with her mother, Jean, about her family’s preoccupation with protective rituals.