Salt and pepper
Salt needs to be in a dish. It balances the fundamental experience, and too much or too little is noticeable.
Pepper is on the table because it was a status symbol. Way back when, if you could afford pepper - you flaunted that fact.
Interacting with groups of people, I have often confused the two. I have been known to lay on the pepper so thick that the fundamental reason for the moment got lost.
Now I ask myself this first: Is there enough salt? What little bit can I add to get the seasoning balanced? How can we make this moment come together?
Then maybe, we can add some pepper for flavour.
Or one of the many, many, other spices that takes something from “balanced, working”, to “exceptional”.