Cellar

Cellar (pronounced sel-er)

(1) A room or set of rooms, for the storage of food, fuel etc, wholly or partly underground and usually beneath a building.

(2) As “wine cellar”, an underground room in wine is stored (now often built above ground but still referred to as “wine cellar”); as “cellar”, a stock of bottled wines.

(3) As “cellar dweller(s)”, in the slang of competitive sport, a reference to teams in the lowliest reaches of the points ladder.

(4) As a verb, to store something (usually wine) in a cellar.

(5) As “salt cellar”, (1) a historical term for a small dish used for holding salt to be dispensed by a spoon & (2) an alternative (if historically misleading) term for what tends in modern use (initially especially in North America but later more generally) to be called a “salt shaker”.

1175–1225: From the Middle English celer and the Old French celier (“salt box” which survives in Modern French as cellier) from the Anglo-French & Latin cellārium (pantry; storeroom (literally group of cells”)), the construct being cell(a) + -ārium, the later re-spelling adopted to reflect the Latin form.  The fifteenth century English saler is from the Old French salier (salière in Modern French), from the Latin salarius (relating to salt) from the Latin sal (salt).  The Latin salarium was a noun use of the adjective meaning "pertaining to salt," again derived from the Latin sal (salt) from the primitive Indo-European sal- (salt).  The sense "room under a house or other building, mostly underground and used for storage" gradually emerged in late Middle and early Modern English, cellar-door attested by 1640s.  The somewhat clumsy noun cellarer (the person, usually in a monastery, responsible for providing food and drink) appears to have gone extinct by the late eighteenth century.

Of cellars, jugs, pots, mills & all that

Lindsay Lohan with milk jug, preparing a Pilk.  A Pilk is a mix of Pepsi Cola and milk, one of a class of beverages created by the Pepsi Corporation called Dirty Sodas which includes the Naughty & Ice, the Chocolate Extreme, the Cherry on Top, the Snow Fl(oat) and the Nutty Cracker.  All are intended to be served with cookies (biscuits).

In English, to describe the containers in which small quantities of stuff (as opposed to bulk-storage such as a bin) was stored, a variety of terms evolved.  Ground pepper is stored in a pepper pot which is shaken; whole or cracked peppercorns being stored in a pepper mill (often now called a pepper grinder) which is ground.  Ground salt is stored in a salt cellar and should be dispensed with a spoon whereas if shaken from a container it's best called a salt shaker; salt crystals are stored in a salt mill (often now called a salt grinder) which is ground.  Sometimes, the pepper pot and salt cellar are kept in a receptacle called a condiment caddy.  Ink, if used by directly dipping in a nib or quill end, is kept in an inkwell; if bought from a shop, it is sold in an ink pot, the latter more recent and, with the decline of writing with ink, now more prevalent.  Gravy is served in a gravy boat.  A ramekin is a small bowl used for preparing and serving individual portions of a variety of dishes, including crème brûlée, soup, molten cakes, moin moin, cheese or egg dishes, poi, macaroni and cheese, lasagna, potted shrimps, ice cream, soufflé, baked cocottes, crumbles, chakra póngal, or scallops, or used to serve side garnishes and condiments alongside an entrée.  Biscuits are kept in a biscuit barrel.  Tea is kept in a tea caddy, milk is served from a milk jug and sugar is taken from a sugar bowl with tongs if in lumps and if in crystals, is taken with a spoon or sprinkled from a caster or, more rarely, a sifter. Liquid condiments such as olive oil and balsamic vinegar are served from a cruet.  Soups and stews are served in a tureen and dispensed with a ladle.

The word ladle is the subject of one of the more curious definitional disputes in English.  A ladle is thought by most reasonable folk to be a specialized spoon but there are pedants of gastronomy who insist that while ladles have a spoon-shaped bowl, the angle of the handle (which can be so acute as to be perpendicular to the bowl) means they are so different to every other spoon that they can be used only for ladling, not spooning.  The etymological evidence offered is that the Middle English ladel is from the Old English hlædel, derived from the Proto-Germanic hlaþaną (to load), derived from several primitive Indo-European sources which meant “to put”, “lay out”, to spread” and, the Old English hlædel (a glossing of the Latin antlia (pump for drawing water)) is from hladan (to load; to draw up water).  It’s less a technical point than a social class signifier known probably only to etymologist and the more snobby maîtres d'hôtel.

Saliera (salt cellar) circa 1542 by Benvenuto Cellini, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien.

In addition to the works he completed, Italian sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) is remembered for his vividly written autobiography, a few of the more extravagant tales suggesting some unreliability of memory but the four murders to which he confesses are undisputed and well-documented.  Convinced of his own greatness, which he did not seek to conceal from his readers, his virtues and vices he seems to suggest were the essential qualities of his genius and for an abundance of one he should be forgiven the excesses of the other.  Friends in high places seemed to agree.  Thanks repeatedly to the interventions of well-placed men of influence, including many cardinals and more than one pope, he was able either to escape punishment or secure pardons and early release from the imprisonment imposed for many of his crimes which, as well as the murders, included sodomy of both young men and women, one of whom in Paris filed a complaint accusing him of using her "after the Italian fashion".

A mannerist masterpiece, the memorable Saliera (salt cellar) is some 10" (250 mm) high and 13" (330 mm) wide, sculpted by hand from rolled gold, resting on a base of ebony into which are installed ivory bearings to permit it to be rolled between guests, around the table.  It represents the gods of the earth and sea, their legs intertwined and thought to suggest “those lengthier branches of the sea which run up into the continents”.  A small boat in which to store the salt floats next to the sea god while a temple for peppercorns sits next to the earth goddess, the figures on the base noting the winds and times of day.  When Cellini presented the piece he made no mention of the names of the figures and only later would they be identified as Neptune and Tellus.