salt and pepper shaker | Blue Witch

The salt shaker and pepper shaker are condiment holders used in Western culture that are designed to allow diners to distribute edible salt and ground peppercorns.

Salt and pepper shakers are sometimes held in a cruet-stand.

Salt and pepper shakers can be made from a variety of materials, including plastic, glass, metal, and ceramic. Except in the most casual dining establishments, they are usually provided as a matched set, sometimes distinguishable only by the number of holes on the top of the shaker. Designs range from small, plain glass screw-top containers (invented by John Landis Mason, inventor of the Mason jar) to more ornate works of art. Sometimes the design refers to some pair of related objects, such as a replica of a West Highland White Terrier containing the salt and a Scottish Terrier containing the pepper. Designs may also relate to specific occasions, such as holidays.

As a result of this diversity of design, collecting salt and pepper shakers is a hobby.

Design of salt and pepper shakers has also been used to transmit cultural perspectives about race, friendships, and other cultural values.

The number and size of holes on salt shakers has been observed to influence consumption of salt, within limits, and it has been suggested that proper selection of shakers delivering smaller amounts may be a means to improve diet by reducing sodium consumption. Salt shakers will normally have fewer holes in them than pepper shakers.

The colors White and Black are widely used to depict opposites. Visually, white and black offer the highest possible contrast. In western culture, white and black traditionally symbolize the dichotomy of good and evil, metaphorically related to light and darkness and day and night. The dichotomy of light and darkness appears already in the Pythagorean Table of Opposites.

The topos of "light and darkness" is also reflected in numerous titles in popular culture, such as Heart of Darkness" (1899), Light in My Darkness (1927), Darkness and the Light (1942), Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969), From Darkness to Light (1973), Darkness and Light (1989), The Lord of the Light and of the Darkness (1993), The Darkness and the Light (1997), Between the Darkness and the Light (1997), Out of the Darkness, Into the Light (1998).