H is for Home Harbinger

Essential for seasoning… they need storing, sprinkling, pinching, grinding and shaking. There are endless possibilities to enable all these things.

Starting with the traditional matching salt & pepper pots… they’re made from pottery, glass, metal, plastic and wood.

As these pots are often left on permanent display, it’s a great opportunity for showing off a bit of good design, striking pattern or flash of colour. These gorgeous Cathrineholm examples manage to combine all three…

We also like pinch pots – they’re great for salt crystals or flakes – and coarse, ground pepper.

We keep these John Clappison-designed Hornsea pinch pots in our kitchen table. They were originally intended as ashtrays, but are the perfect size & shape for this alternative use.

Larger pinch pots & salt pigs are great for keeping beside the stove for everyday cooking use.

These wooden pinch pots are actually antique cheese moulds – again they’re ideal for their new function.

A salt pig is one of the best containers to keep by the cooker as it allows for a good scoop or handful when adding to boiling water for pasta, rice, vegetables etc.

If you prefer your salt in a sealed container there are lots of options here too!

And finally grinders… these make light work of salt crystals & whole peppercorns – releasing aromas and flavours right at the point of serving.

The undoubted master of the grinder is designer Jens Quistgaard, with his numerous examples produced for Dansk Designs. There is, in fact, a book available entirely dedicated to the subject – Danish Pepper: Jens Quistgaard’s Teak Pepper Mills (Amazon USA)

As you can see from the cover, their sculptural forms and beautiful grain makes for a stunning grouping. We’ve just decided that we may have to start a collection of our own!