> the size of the salt is directly proportional to the amount of the message you want to consume (because, as you know, in food there's a certain fixed ratio of salt to other ingredients).
Hmm, where are you getting this idea from? It seems to me that the salt is meant to act as some sort of antidote and/or preservative:
> The idea comes from the fact that food is more easily swallowed if taken with a small amount of salt. Pliny the Elder translated an ancient antidote for poison with the words 'be taken fasting, plus a grain of salt'.
> Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. translates thus:
> After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.
Fun fact: The word "salary" comes from salt, too– Romans greatly valued the stuff for its preservative qualities, and built roads for its transportation.
Hmm, where are you getting this idea from? It seems to me that the salt is meant to act as some sort of antidote and/or preservative:
> The idea comes from the fact that food is more easily swallowed if taken with a small amount of salt. Pliny the Elder translated an ancient antidote for poison with the words 'be taken fasting, plus a grain of salt'.
> Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. translates thus:
> After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/e21.html
Fun fact: The word "salary" comes from salt, too– Romans greatly valued the stuff for its preservative qualities, and built roads for its transportation.