I believed that salt and pepper cancelled each other out. So if you had put too much salt in your food, you could simply add pepper to take away the saltiness.
A childhood belief about salt

others believed things like this
- I use to believe that salt would cool food down while pepper would heat your foodAnon
- i thought salt made food cold, since pepper made it *hot* — cattiva
- I used to think that pepper was only used to mark where you'd put the salt.— BK
- I never used to understand why salt was bad for you, but pepper wasn't.— Lara
- I believed Dr. Pepper was pepper-flavored medicine and was afraid to drink it.Anon
- I used to believe that Dr. Pepper actually tastes like Black pepper. I'm still afraid to try it.Anon