Sea Salt - DJE
Sea Salt Trivia - Arete
Gary Brown
Larry Finch
Julie Hoffman
Bob Saldeen
Susan Wenger
Greg White
Sea Salt - DJE
What about "sea salt"? It's loaded with impurities, largely chlorides other than sodium. Is it considered OK? (We've all ingested a lot of it over the years, often unintentionally when the wind is howling and the waves are breaking o'er the bow.)
Sea Salt Trivia - Arete
The ancient Middle-Easterners, apropos of nothing whatever, used to use the rime that formed around the Dead Sea as a sort of cheap salt-substitute. However, if left too long the salty crystals (not necessarily NaCl?) evaporated (sorry, *sublimed*) leaving behind a white powdery gunk with no taste. Therefore, in that context, it was possible for salt to " -- lose its saltiness -- ", thereby being good only for road resurfacing, etc.
Gary Brown, who loves a glass of Manzanilla with a lick of fleur du sel.....
Like everything, it depends on taste! Some very good chefs, and some real gourmets, think that salt is pretty much salt (though they'll want as little adulteration with iodine etc as possible). Others are immensely particular, often wanting the hand-harvested fleur-du-sel from Normandy (which, even in France, is hideously expensive: Guerande's best is about 50 USD per pound!). Yes, and some snobbery creeps in too - if it's expensive, it must be double-good! Personal view - I love salt, but I don't like too much in food at all, 'cos I'm fairly sensitive to its intensity. When I do want salt, I want it to have some texture, and to taste of the sea (well, usually....): hence I'm a sucker for those vastly expensive salts (including the ones that are flavoured with herbs). I'm happy to eat, for a snack, a piece of lightly buttered toast, sprinkled lightly with these salts. 'Regular', or even kosher, table salt wouldn't answer here at all. I can even enjoy a 1/4 teaspoon of the fancy-schmantzy salts right off the spoon!
Larry Finch
Most table salt is a lot more than salt, and has a lot less salt than sea salt. By using sea salt you avoid the additives, that can be up to 75% of the contents of the salt shaker. One way to get pure salt is kosher salt, which comes in large crystals.
Celtic Sea Salt for some dishes with a salt crust.
Baleine French coarse sea salt in our salt grinder for everyday use.
Fleur de Sel for real gourmet cooking and salting delicate dishes at the table. It is VERY expensive ($9 for 4.4 ounces), but the difference is noticeable to most people who try it. It is harvested from seawater ponds a few days a year when the temperature and humidity are just right for the salt to form a "skin" on the surface of the ponds.
Julie Hoffman
And very pretty and tasty they can be when sprinkled on top of a nice slab of sweet cream butter, ready to be spread on a warm roll with a crispy crust and a soft center.
Bob Saldeen
All salt is not created equal. For example, the French love their salts. They have a variety of salt available in French supermarkets, and we bought a few cans to take back home last spring. Some of them are available in high-end super markets here in the US like "Whole Foods" (also known as "Whole Paycheck").
[See Bob's photo here.]
The can on the left was the most expensive -I think that's the "Champagne of Salts" - maybe around $4 a can, don't remember now. Cork top that seals in all that salty goodness.
The French salts have bigger flakes than your typical Morton-type "When It Rains It Pours" salt. Great on popcorn and corn-on-the-cob.
A lot of recipes call for kosher salt - you see that in beef recipes sometimes. It makes a difference. It's the flake/rock size, not so much the chemistry, I think. That kosher stuff's great for grilling. Try it on a steak sometime.
I draw the line at salt mills though--it doesn't seem like the chemicals will be any "fresher" if they're recently ground.
Susan Wenger
Close examination of the historical record reveals that Admiral Nelson never specified what kind of salt Aubrey was to pass to him. Certainly Jack would have remembered the distinction had Nelson asked for sea salt.
Unpretentious as always, heroic Nelson.
Greg White
Jeffrey Steingarten, the author of The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Have Been Something I Ate, a food writer for Vogue and a self-proclaimed salt snob looked into this. Chemical analyses revealed very slight variations and professional taste tests were almost entirely inconclusive (the testers could only detect the chichi salt in a few cases).
The real variation seems to be in the shape of the salt crystal which effects both its volume and how rapidly it melts. The former is critical for cooking - one tablespoon is a volumetric measure and if it contains more or less actual salt it can throw your recipe out of whack. That's why recipes will sometimes specify the type of salt.
How fast the crystal melts, BTW, will determine how "salty" it tastes on your tongue as well as the texture on certain foods.
Sea Salt Trivia - Arete
Gary Brown
Larry Finch
Julie Hoffman
Bob Saldeen
Susan Wenger
Greg White
Sea Salt - DJE
What about "sea salt"? It's loaded with impurities, largely chlorides other than sodium. Is it considered OK? (We've all ingested a lot of it over the years, often unintentionally when the wind is howling and the waves are breaking o'er the bow.)
Sea Salt Trivia - Arete
The ancient Middle-Easterners, apropos of nothing whatever, used to use the rime that formed around the Dead Sea as a sort of cheap salt-substitute. However, if left too long the salty crystals (not necessarily NaCl?) evaporated (sorry, *sublimed*) leaving behind a white powdery gunk with no taste. Therefore, in that context, it was possible for salt to " -- lose its saltiness -- ", thereby being good only for road resurfacing, etc.
Gary Brown, who loves a glass of Manzanilla with a lick of fleur du sel.....
Like everything, it depends on taste! Some very good chefs, and some real gourmets, think that salt is pretty much salt (though they'll want as little adulteration with iodine etc as possible). Others are immensely particular, often wanting the hand-harvested fleur-du-sel from Normandy (which, even in France, is hideously expensive: Guerande's best is about 50 USD per pound!). Yes, and some snobbery creeps in too - if it's expensive, it must be double-good! Personal view - I love salt, but I don't like too much in food at all, 'cos I'm fairly sensitive to its intensity. When I do want salt, I want it to have some texture, and to taste of the sea (well, usually....): hence I'm a sucker for those vastly expensive salts (including the ones that are flavoured with herbs). I'm happy to eat, for a snack, a piece of lightly buttered toast, sprinkled lightly with these salts. 'Regular', or even kosher, table salt wouldn't answer here at all. I can even enjoy a 1/4 teaspoon of the fancy-schmantzy salts right off the spoon!
Larry Finch
Most table salt is a lot more than salt, and has a lot less salt than sea salt. By using sea salt you avoid the additives, that can be up to 75% of the contents of the salt shaker. One way to get pure salt is kosher salt, which comes in large crystals.
Celtic Sea Salt for some dishes with a salt crust.
Baleine French coarse sea salt in our salt grinder for everyday use.
Fleur de Sel for real gourmet cooking and salting delicate dishes at the table. It is VERY expensive ($9 for 4.4 ounces), but the difference is noticeable to most people who try it. It is harvested from seawater ponds a few days a year when the temperature and humidity are just right for the salt to form a "skin" on the surface of the ponds.
Julie Hoffman
And very pretty and tasty they can be when sprinkled on top of a nice slab of sweet cream butter, ready to be spread on a warm roll with a crispy crust and a soft center.
Bob Saldeen
All salt is not created equal. For example, the French love their salts. They have a variety of salt available in French supermarkets, and we bought a few cans to take back home last spring. Some of them are available in high-end super markets here in the US like "Whole Foods" (also known as "Whole Paycheck").
[See Bob's photo here.]
The can on the left was the most expensive -I think that's the "Champagne of Salts" - maybe around $4 a can, don't remember now. Cork top that seals in all that salty goodness.
The French salts have bigger flakes than your typical Morton-type "When It Rains It Pours" salt. Great on popcorn and corn-on-the-cob.
A lot of recipes call for kosher salt - you see that in beef recipes sometimes. It makes a difference. It's the flake/rock size, not so much the chemistry, I think. That kosher stuff's great for grilling. Try it on a steak sometime.
I draw the line at salt mills though--it doesn't seem like the chemicals will be any "fresher" if they're recently ground.
Susan Wenger
Close examination of the historical record reveals that Admiral Nelson never specified what kind of salt Aubrey was to pass to him. Certainly Jack would have remembered the distinction had Nelson asked for sea salt.
Unpretentious as always, heroic Nelson.
Greg White
Jeffrey Steingarten, the author of The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Have Been Something I Ate, a food writer for Vogue and a self-proclaimed salt snob looked into this. Chemical analyses revealed very slight variations and professional taste tests were almost entirely inconclusive (the testers could only detect the chichi salt in a few cases).
The real variation seems to be in the shape of the salt crystal which effects both its volume and how rapidly it melts. The former is critical for cooking - one tablespoon is a volumetric measure and if it contains more or less actual salt it can throw your recipe out of whack. That's why recipes will sometimes specify the type of salt.
How fast the crystal melts, BTW, will determine how "salty" it tastes on your tongue as well as the texture on certain foods.