Bread and Salt

Bread and salt is a Slavic welcome greeting ceremony.

The tradition, known by its local Slavic names (Russian: Хлеб-соль; Ukrainian: Хліб-сіль; Belarusian: Хлеб і соль; Bulgarian: Хляб и сол; Macedonian: Леб и сол; Croatian: Kruh i sol; Serbian: Хлеб и со; Polish: Chleb i sól; Slovak: Chlieb a soľ; Czech: Chléb a sůl; Slovene: Kruh in sol), was also adopted by two non-Slavic nations — Lithuanians (Baltic) and Romanians (Latin) — both of which are culturally and historically close to their Slavic neighbours (Lithuanian: Duona ir druska and Romanian: Pâine şi sare).

When important, respected, or admired guests arrive, they are presented with a loaf of bread placed on a rushnik (embroidered towel). A salt holder or a salt cellar is placed on top of the bread loaf or secured in a hole on the top of the loaf. In modern Russia, on official occasions, the "bread and salt" is presented by young women dressed in national costumes (e.g., sarafan and kokoshnik).

When this tradition is observed in spaceflight, appropriately small packages of bread and salt are used.


Famous quotes containing the words bread and, bread and/or salt:

    I who take here
    my bread and life
    and sweep the temple,
    still I swear
    that I would save you,
    birds or spirits.
    Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)

    Ceremony and ritual spring from our heart of hearts: those who govern us know it well, for they would sooner deny us bread than dare alter the observance of tradition.
    F. Gonzalez-Crussi, Mexican professor of pathology, author. “On Embalming,” Notes of an Anatomist (1985)

    The salt person and blasted place
    I furnish with the meat of a fable;
    If the dead starve, their stomachs turn to tumble
    An upright man in the antipodes
    Or spray-based and rock-chested sea:
    Over the past table I repeat this present grace.
    Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)