We have much to be thankful for, more than a one-day holiday allows. And we all can be thankful for the myriad benefits made possible by salt. Not only will Thanksgiving tables feature "Neptune's Gift" as families gather to celebrate, but more and more holiday chefs will be brining their turkeys this year. Try a Google search yourself: 1.8 million websites offer advice on brining. While a few offer advice more practical in the months ahead , most explain how soaking your turkey in salt brine will produce the tenderist, tastiest bird you've ever had.

As the top-listed Webervirtualbullet site explains:

Today there's a surge in popularity of "flavor brining", a term coined by Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly in the book The Complete Meat Cookbook .

While traditional brining was meant to preserve meat, the purpose of flavor brining is to improve the flavor, texture, and moisture content of lean cuts of meat. This is achieved by soaking the meat in a moderately salty solution for a few hours to a few days. Flavor brining also provides a temperature cushion during cooking--if you happen to overcook the meat a little, it will still be moist.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving.

Whether you take advantage of the salt-centered recipes on the Salt Institute's website via the home page drop-down menu or go direct to the recipes page , you'll want to check out the new page on salt roasting of fish, meats and vegetables. Then head for the kitchen with your bulk salt in hand!

Since fish are especially flavorful when salt-roasted and since fish are consumed in North America only a fraction as much as in Europe, salt -roasting -- simple, quick and easy -- may stimulate more Americans to improve the quality of their diet by increasing their intake of fish. Just today, Sally Squires in the Washington Post reported that nutritionists are concerned that more Americans aren't eating fish.

It was with great interest that I recently came across an article describing some of Benjamin Franklin's experiments on electricity. Although he was most well-known for his invention of the lightening rod and his work on condensers and batteries, he was never given proper credit for his invention of the process of tenderizing poultry by electrical stimulation.

In correspondence with his English colleagues, Franklin wrote that linking several electrical capacitance jars together allowed him to kill a 10 lb. turkey with a single jolt of high voltage electricity. "I conceit that the birds killed in this manner eat uncommonly tender," he noted.

More than 200 years later, US patents were awarded for "…electrically stimulating poultry carcasses in order to tenderize the poultry meat."

There really isn't very much new under the sun.

Recently, much hue and cry was raised about "enhanced poultry," as if this time-honored brining technique for improving the tenderness of poultry was a new invention of big industry. Brining originated from a method of curing called corning, although it had nothing whatsoever to do with corn. The name comes from Anglo-Saxon times. Meat was cured in coarse "corns" of salt. Pellets of salt, the size of kernels of corn, were rubbed into the beef to keep it from spoiling and to preserve it. It was a means of making tough cuts of beef, particularly briskets, tender prior to storage (since refrigeration was unavailable at the time). Corned beef became such a beloved product that it continues to be made by brining today, even though we all have refrigerators.

As I said, there really isn't very much new under the sun.

I received an interesting call the other day from a correspondent preparing story for the Chicago Tribune. She had heard from an author that so little salt was consumed in Finland that there was actually no word for it in the Finnish language. This struck me as rather odd because the Finns are known to consume among the highest levels of salt in the world. How could that be possible without having a word for the world's favorite condiment? Might a typical conversation around the kitchen table go something like this?

Olga, this soup is perfect, you added just the right amount of white stuff and pepper. Would you mind passing the white stuffine crackers, they go perfect with this soup.

Oh, I'm glad you like it Paavo, guess what's up next?

Don't tell me it's my favorite, white stuff herring or perhaps some of your excellent white stuff pork and beans? Olga, my darling, you are really the white stuff of the earth.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? In fact, it didn't take long to set the record straight. The word for salt in Finland is suola. Another urban legend destroyed!

Sometimes you have to take some authors with a pinch of suola… or white stuff!!

This from Nancy R. Fenn :

"Dr. Alan Hirsch of the smell and taste institute says after testing more than 18 thousand people, he believes food can determine a couple's compatibility… Or at least help you pick out a possible mate. Hirsch claims, "We were able to determine who you would be most romantically compatible with and 95% of the time it's correct." His book, What's Your Food Sign?, covers cocktails, breakfast foods, ice cream, fruits & veggies - even snacks. So if you love potato chips the research shows you are a competitive, high achiever. You'll go well with other chip lovers but you can mix it up with pretzel people too.Popcorn lovers are self-confident take-charge types, but are also modest, and won't show-off. You'll pop for other popcorn people and may get hot for tortilla chip lovers.Or here's another taste test for love. A severe sweet tooth means you live for the moment. People who prefer sour flavors are loyal and will stay together. Spicy food fanatics are thrill seekers who try to end a relationship quickly. And salt lovers are introverts who want to avoid a confrontation."

I don't know about you other salt-lovers, but my Myers-Briggs results are a definite "E" -- for the uninitiated, that's "extroverted" and NHLBI, I believe, would not consider me non-confrontational. On the other hand, my wife and I have been married nearly 39 years. Go figure.

What is it they say about great minds? This morning's Washington Post addresses a topic close to my post last evening -- measuring quantities of table salt. In this case, Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, discusses how to adjust recipe amounts of salt when using the two types of kosher salt available (hint: use 1.5 times as much Morton Kosher Salt and twice as much Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt). And, says Wolke, don't bother using sea salt in cooking; if you use it, add it at the table.

You've all seen contests where people are asked to guess how many jelly beans are in a glass jar. Amaze your friends with this alternative: Pour a 26 oz. "round can" of salt into a jar and ask your friends to guess how many salt crystals are in the jar.

Ever wonder how much a single crystal of table salt weighs? The Salt Institute hadn't given that question a thought until this just-received request arrived. Thanks to Lead Research Chemist Lorrie Ann Fisher of Morton Salt, the world now knows (but your friends may not) that the average weight of a single crystal of table salt is 0.16 milligrams. Thus, a typical 26 oz. "round can" of table salt would contain over four and a half million salt crystals (4,606,800 give or take). Now you know!

Bargain? What other crystals can you buy at 10 million for a buck?

Put another way, that means the FDA's "Daily Reference Value" (FDA food labels do NOT provide a "daily recommended value") for sodium is more than 37,000 crystals of table salt.