Preserving a memory with salt

There is a truck that regularly runs through the communities of El Salvador serving their favorite additive/spice- salt. What is unique about this truck is not only the fact that it blares over its speakers "CHUTON-CITY!", it is actually that someone sees the need to sell salt in mass quantities. $2 buys you a fair amount but then $8 will buy you a quintal. When I google translated what a quintal was, it said- quintal. So apparently it's the same in English. According to Google, a quintal is 100 kg. I still have no idea what a 100 kg so I continued to Google. As it turns out, Salvadorans are even crazier than I previously thought. 100 kg is equal to 220 lbs!!!! So taking this new information, you have to think culturally, why is this significant? In Salvadoran culture, they lack that unique cooking culture that Mexicans seemed to have preserved so well. I attribute this to the genocide of the native population in this country. Many traditions- food, language, and otherwise- were lost. Salt somehow became a main ingredient in most food here. It is such a necessary mineral that when you are served an already salty dish of chicken and rice it is quite normal to be given a big tub of salt or a teaspoon side of salt on your plate...just in case it wasn't salty enough.

The love of salt is only matched by their love of sugar which is also purchased in mass quantities for their drinks. But that is another story for another day...