Salt, Protection, and a Pinch of Luck

Sugar, the first spell you ever learned wasn’t written in a book. It was hiding in your kitchen. White crystals, glittering like tiny stars in a chipped ceramic bowl by the stove. Salt.

In my Nonna’s house, the salt dish was never empty. She’d hum when she filled it, like she was feeding the house itself. The grains would pile soft as beach sand, cool between your fingers, sharp on your tongue. A pinch tossed at the door kept trouble away. A pinch stirred into soup healed what the doctor couldn’t name. She’d slap my hand if I reached for it careless. “Salt is alive,” she’d say. “You treat it with respect.”

Back in Calabria, the men carried seawater home in wine jugs, left it on the roof until the sun drank it dry. What shimmered at the bottom wasn’t just seasoning. It was home, luck, protection, prosperity. To this day, I can close my eyes and smell the air — briny, metallic, a little wild — and see those crystals sparkling like frost even in the thick of summer.

Now, what does that mean for you?

Salt is more than something you use in a dish. It’s something you carry with you. Slip a pinch into your pocket before a job interview. Keep a small jar in your car for safe travels. Bring bread and salt into a new home so the walls never feel empty. Even the act of sprinkling it into a pot of pasta can be a reminder: life is complicated and simple all at once.

Once, my father walked to a job interview with a pouch of salt my mother had slipped into his jacket. He didn’t know it was there, but he came home hired. He kissed her hand like she was a saint, but she only laughed and said, “Thank the salt.”

You think it’s silly? Try spilling it. Your hand will move before your head does, tossing a pinch over your shoulder so the devil goes blind. Try seasoning a dish without it, and you’ll taste how flat the world feels when there’s no sparkle. And when the malocchio follows you, when envy curls its fingers into your luck, boil pasta water, light a candle, and whisper to the salt. It listens.

Salt is ordinary, but ordinary things are the ones that carry the most power. Too little, life is bland. Too much, life turns bitter. The secret is balance, intention, the knowing when to sprinkle and when to hold back.

So keep salt close, sugar. Keep it by the stove, by the door, in your pocket if you need to. Season your food last, with gratitude. And when you do, don’t just think of flavor. Think of your Nonna, your ancestors, the sea, the sun, every hand that carried this magic forward until it landed in yours.

Because salt isn’t just food. Salt is a spell. And it’s one you already know how to cast.