Frumpy Mom: Excuse me while I tell you a salty story

Once upon a time, you could walk into a restaurant and feel certain of a few things.

You’re going to eat more than you intended

The server will suggest something that will facilitate that, looking at you with disdain when you say you don’t need a starter or a cocktail that costs more than your first car.

Your table will have salt and pepper shakers.

Now, the first two of these truisms are still reliable. However, often, you’re not going to find any salt and pepper.

In fact, I have a friend — a professional with an important job — who always has little packets of salt in the inner recesses of her handbag, just for such an emergency.

Personally, I’m not a salt-o-holic, but occasionally I find myself eating a dish that desperately begs for some flavor. Sorry, chef, but it’s true.

Here’s the thing: When you’re at a snooty restaurant, sometimes you already feel a little intimidated, like maybe you underdressed or the server can tell just by looking at you that your car is 20 years old. You’re staring at a fork that seems extraneous and wondering what the bleep you’re supposed to do with it.

This is not the time you want to prove what a peasant you are by asking for the salt and pepper. Obviously, if you weren’t gauche, you would be happy with the seasoning on your meal, but now you’re insulting the chef. Or that’s what it feels like.

That’s why my friend carries around her own salt packets, so she can quietly sprinkle it on her food without alerting anyone.

I recently asked a successful restaurateur what she thought about this issue. She told me that there are no salt and pepper shakers on her tables because her food is seasoned properly. Her food is delicious, so I would tend to agree but I know them’s fighting words to many people.

No one knows who first had the temerity to remove the condiments from the tables, but it’s been more than 10 years now that this debate has been simmering. That’s a little joke. Get it? Simmering,

This was only exacerbated by COVID-19, which practically stripped your average table of anything, sometimes including real dishes. And menus. I still want to know why I can’t get a real menu to look at, instead of having to scroll down my phone in tiny print. But I digress.

Suddenly, people became aware that those shakers were sticky for a reason, as in 10,000 grubby fingers had touched them before you. Ick. Enter the brave new world of salt packets.

Then, the salt just disappeared, like maybe all the salt mines just closed down.

If you talk to restaurant servers, they say “Good riddance.”

Apparently, of all the items that seem to magically disappear from table tops, salt and pepper shakers routinely make the top of the list. They probably don’t walk out under their own power, so we must assume they’re being stolen. This happens even at high end restaurants, where presumably people who can pay $70 for a steak could buy themselves a set.

Many restaurants remove the salt shakers from the table before dessert, to keep them from accidentally walking away in someone’s pocket.

Sometimes, when diners ask for salt, it will appear in a tiny dish with a tiny spoon. That solves the problem of germy salt shakers, but I can’t help wondering if the tiny spoons would then disappear.

There’s supposedly also a trend to make tables smaller and cram more people into your space, according to a few foodie articles, so there’s less room for extraneous stuff like condiments.

Then there’s the issue of pre-salting. My adult children are guilty of this and it’s not because I taught them. In fact, I harangue them to stop doing it. “It’s an insult to the chef to salt your food before you even taste it,” I tell them, but all to no avail.

The moment the entree arrives, they’re shaking that salt container like dice at a craps table.

This is aggravating to a chef, and I can understand why.

Meanwhile, even if salt is disappearing, plenty of other seasonings are having a moment. Fish sauce at Thai restaurants. Pickled chiles, pico de gallo, pickled ginger, chopped onions and cilantro. Chutney. You name it, the ethnic restaurants we frequent nowadays don’t scrimp on the spice.

And that’s how it should be.