Sucre ou sale

"Salt" means something different in French than it does in English.

The brasserie across the street advertises: "Complete Breakfast, Sugar or Salt."

It would never occur to me to call a savory dish I prepare a "salt" dish. But that's how you say it in French.

Yesterday Emma Lucy, one of our resident French experts (who just tested out of all the French grammar classes for her first year of college! Woo hoo!), started smiling as she read the label on our salt. "It's a story!" she told us.

My translation (errors not Emma Lucy's fault): There was once a sick little boy who refused to take his medicine, it was so insipid. A bird, called by the child, went in search of the purest salt, and he put it into the medicine, so the child took the medicine and got well.

Basically, a spoonful of salt helps the medicine go down!