Honestly that's kinda cool. And I refuse to imagine anything but a melon sized hunk 'o salt on the dinner table, with a small hammer and chisel for those who want to salt their meal.

I think if you keep the salt exposed at the atmosphere, you'll quickly run into the problem of it absorbing a lot of water.

Quite. I learned this the hard way when I moved to a place with a swamp cooler. My salt lamp started weeping brine and salt sludge onto my side table.

nah. we arent those kinds of brutes. we simply buy a big hunk, every other month on a sunday spend time with a hammer and break it down to small pieces. then use a food processor to powder it