Why did Walder Frey serve bread and salt to the Starks when they arrived for the Red Wedding?

Going through the bread and salt ritual eased Catelyn and Robb’s security concerns because guest right in Westeros is supposed to be inviolable. If Walder had outright refused bread and salt when Robb asked for it, it would have looked highly suspicious and it’s very possible, even probable, that Catelyn and Robb would have found some excuse to leave if they didn’t think the Frays could be trusted. Walder obviously needed Robb to stay put, so he went through the motions to do what was necessary to put the Starks at ease.
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What makes what the Frays did so reprehensible is that Walder actually went through the ritual — he could have declined and in turn Robb could have made an informed decision about whether or not to stay without guest right protection being in effect. Instead Walder performed the ritual and then broke guest right anyway.
(You could argue that whatever magical force allowed Catelyn to be resurrected was some sort of divine punishment for the Frays breaking guest right; usually “curses” like that are self-fulfilling, that is people avoid you because they think you’re cursed and in turn you look like you’re cursed because people avoid you. In this case though, the Frays actually got supernatural comeuppance.)
Also , it was part of his plan to completely annihilate the Starks, at a nominal cost to himself.
Catelyn and Robb knew good and well that Walder was pissed at them, and Catelyn (particularly in the books) was very aware of the possibility that he’d turn on them. Fray could have launched an attack on a wary Robb and his men, and maybe won, but it would be a costly and bloody thing, and he might lose, which would mean his own life. What Walder really wanted was the best deal for himself, at minimal cost and no risk.
Given that they were in the middle of a war, the only way Robb would have allowed himself and his men to be surrounded, disarmed, dispersed and drunk is if he absolutely trusted that they were safe. And the only way he was going to have that level of trust was if Walder Fray offered them the protection of guest right.
In short, Fray took advantage of the fact that he didn’t care about the most sacred assumptions of his own society, and was willing to publicly and openly violate them. He did everything he did to make his “guests” feel fully at ease so he could slaughter them without meaningful resistance.



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