Salt Enhances the Flavor of African Food
Two thousand years ago salt was used primarily for two reasons, to preserve and to season. And while preservation was the most critical in a practical sense the flavouring benefits of NaCl or sodium chloride can never be underestimated.
A number years ago a buddy of mine spent a couple of months in Zambia, in Africa. And he told me that the staple food there was called nsima. For breakfast you got nsima, at lunch you got nsima, for supper you got nsima, great heaping piles of nsima. And what you ask is nsima, nsima is ground maize and water, and John said that it tasted like a cross between oatmeal and wall paper paste. And there was no milk for it, and no cream for it and no sugar for it. And my buddy said that the only way that you could make it taste any better was by adding salt. And I remain convinced that without the Christian church that this world would be much like nsima, flavourless and dull.
From a sermon by Denn Guptill, On This Rock, 11/8/2009