The largest collection of salt and pepper shakers Spain, Guadalest, Costa Blanca
The next time you knock over a salt cellar and take a pinch of salt is poured over his left shoulder to ward off bad luck, keep in mind that white beans few at a time have been part of someone's wages. And besides, the thing with holes in the top is called a salt shaker, not a shaker.
It's amazing the things you learn when you least expect it. I'm getting a talk in depth about the world of the salt shaker, salt and pepper shakers Andrea Ludden and his son Alex, his delightful idiosyncrasies and Salt Shaker Museum Guadalest. And glad that is interesting.
"Salt is much more important our lives and history that most people think, "says Alex." The word salarium, salary comes from the fact that the Roman soldiers paid part of their income in the salt. It is also thought that the "soldier" word itself comes from the Latin sal dare, to give the salt. If we focus on common phrases as "the salt of the earth" is not worthy of its salt, "Below the salt, etc. can have an idea of how salt was important." And yet, because no salt in our diet can not survive.
Far from being just a crazy woman with a fetish for Belgian salt shakers, collection Andrea started from a totally different direction to something just to show on the shelves of your kitchen. As an archaeologist who had spent many years working in South America, where his main interest was in how people travel and communicate.
"The salt trade was of great importance not only for its commercial value, but also because it allowed food to be preserved, letting people travel much greater distances than they could without canned food, fresh food without knowing what would be available, "he says Andrea." However, pepper was also important, and records show that when the Gauls invaded Rome demanded twenty thousand pounds of pepper as part of the bailout. "
As you wander through the museum I find it hard believe that the screen couple of twenty thousand chefs fat, ruby red tomato guards, bearskin, The Beatles, the feet of Santa coming out of a chimney, pistols and potatoes, a copy of the salt and pepper to Lady Diana twins had (which, fortunately, are sealed and its contents are painted everywhere as they shook hand), has another reason to come together to be simply a person be of collection idea – but they do.
"When we moved States there was no work in archeology, so I started looking social anthropology, "continued Andrea. Often apparently looking to articles most mundane of everyday life that you can build a broad overview of a specific period. And that is what Andrea began to do.
"No There is hardly anything you can think of that has been copied in a salt and pepper, and many of them reflect the designs, colors, the concerns of the time. For example, a pot from the 1940 will look totally different from the kitchens of the 1990s, and by using these differences and the materials that were We can get an idea of how people lived at one time. "
It was not until the 1920's, when Chicago Headquartered in Morton Salt magnesium carbonate added to your product, it was possible to rub salt in a sealed container. From this point the shaker was born. Before the bowls or small containers, usually with a spoon, was used in the table (the original salt) as the salt has a tendency to attract moisture and become lumpy.
"Morton was the beginning development of the shaker, but curiously, was the car that lead them to become collectors' items," continues Alex. " It was because people could travel more freely, whether for business or vacation, the industry of memories occurred. Salt and pepper shakers are cheap, easy to transport and colors and made ideal gifts. Imagine that you live in an isolated town somewhere and your child brought a series in the form of the Golden Gate Bridge when they arrived at their home annual visit. Do not get used, it would be carefully guarded as a decorative element. This is how, in many major collections of the first started. "
The height of the salt and pepper production was between 1920 and 60, with the facts of plastic in the 50 and 60 of special interest for some people. "Plastic is fragile, at least these examples exist, and there are specialists. Collectors who pay far models of the time" But the world of the salt shaker and pepper and holds no boundaries, the Saliera Cellini, cast in solid gold (and, sometimes known as the 'Mona Lisa of sculpture "), secured by $ 60 million to the prosaic plastic red pepper, a bargain at only 75 cents in the local Chinese store, there is something for all.
Andrea collection of more than forty thousand pairs, half of Guadalest and the other half in his museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, looked out the simple purchase of a pepper mill at a garage sale, shortly after the family moved to the U.S. – It did not work!
"That first did not work, so I bought a couple more. I used to be on the windowsill of my kitchen, and the neighbors thought I was building a collection. Nothing could be further from my mind! They began to bring some of the beautiful and, finally, there were about 14,000 in shelves throughout the house, even in rooms. One day my husband said, "Andrea, you will find a place to put these things or is this a divorce!" So we decided to create a museum. "
Some of the best museums I've found because someone has come the desire to show his collection in the world, the Museum of Cards is unique in Oropesa, Museum of Footwear, Elda, the traveling collection of curious urinals Torremolinos. "I think a museum like ours is different from a large municipal institution because things is a very personal way. Although there are many agitators, you begin to recognize your grandmother used to have, or you saw when you went on vacation somewhere or given as a gift once. People return again and again and think we're adding to the sample, but we're not, I just did not see for the first time around. "
Seeing the almost unlimited choice of models does not mean feat, but Andrea has an excellent eye for how to do. "It almost impossible to classify, because you can work on, age, material, color, etc, but I'll try and make it to combine all these elements together. I have a very visual memory, and I can not go into an antique shop or go to a garage sale and know instantly if I see one for sale I have in my collection or not, even if just salt and pepper or a couple.
And the collection is endless? "Never! It's the game I love, hoping that I find something different, something special. And "special" does not necessarily mean more ornate or expensive, can be something very simple that I fell in love when you I see. "
So next time you visit a museum that is full of weird and wonderful, do not immediately think, "What hell is a person to pick the lot? "because it could be another deepen social anthropology rather strange obsession with someone – but again, that only could!
Salt and pepper shakers Museum (Museo de la Sal and pepper)
Avenida 2 de Alicante, Guadalest, Alicante. (Next to the Tourist Office)
Open daily from 10.30 to 19:30. Entry € 3, children under 12 years.
About the Author
English travel writer Derek Workman arrived in Spain on the cusp of the millennium, having spent his first half century following divergent career paths including Merchant Navy officer, antiques restorer, muralist, exhibition organiser and audio producer – none of which particularly equipped him to be a travel writer. As a journalist, first for regional newspapers and then international newspapers and magazines, his travels took him throughout Spain, El Piel del Toro, as the Spanish refer to their country, as its outline resembles the shape of a bull’s hide laid flat. From his home in Valencia, Spain’s third largest city he spends much of his time in the inland region of the Costa Blanca, an area not well known by the casual visitor, and which provided the material for his books, Inland Trips from the Costa Blanca and Small Hotels and Inns of Eastern Spain, and articles too numerous to mention.
To discover more about Spain, visit www.derekworkman-journalist.com and http://derekworkman.wordpress.com. http://valpaparazzi.wordpress.com are random notes about life in Spain.
Salt-N-Pepa – Push It
