Folklore & Superstition

“I Love You Like Salt”: The Folktale

By The Salt AlmanacPublished November 8, 2026

Short answer: A folktale told across Europe and beyond has a king ask his daughters how much they love him. The youngest says “as meat loves salt,” and is banished for an answer that turns out to be the truest of all.

In the English version, Cap o' Rushes, published by Joseph Jacobs in his English Fairy Tales, the banished daughter works as a kitchen servant, wins a nobleman's son, and at her wedding feast has every dish cooked without salt. Her father, a guest, tastes the bland food, realizes what she meant, and weeps.

Folklorists file this story under the type called “Love Like Salt,” and Jacobs noted how closely its opening resembles Shakespeare's King Lear, in which a daughter's plain answer is also mistaken for a lack of love. The lesson: you don't know how much you need something until it's gone.

Related traditions

All salt traditions