In May I stopped in Harrisburg. The Dauphin County Historical Society has the pre-colonial account book of the Rev. John Roan for Paxtang and Derry. I discovered in this book that my ancestor, George Calhoon, twice paid his church subscription with “a bushel of salt”.
An art professor of mine was pleased to have my company but mentioned a proverb from his native Poland, “One is not a friend until you have shared a barrel of salt.” The sense was that one’s friends have shared both times for breaking bread and salving wounds.
I was not aware until recently that this expression has an origin earlier than Aristotle.
But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have 'eaten salt together'; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.
— Nicomachean Ethics: Book VIII
In no substantial sense have I shared salt with my distant ancestors. But, voices are still heard in the records of their lives preserved in scattered remnants of our past. Some seem now to be friends. Those that I have come to know I will attempt to give words.