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By Maureen Clancy
UNION-TRIBUNE FOOD WRITER
April 26, 2006
In the beginning there was salt, plain or iodized. Morton. Blue cylindrical box. Little girl under umbrella.
Kosher salt, preferred by professional chefs, gained a place on kitchen shelves in the '70s, when cooking became a fashionable hobby. And French fleur de sel (flower of the salt) was the darling of upscale restaurants at the turn of the 21st century.
However, as Lot's wife made perfectly clear, there's no looking back.
Today, we are awash in fancy sea salts, with enough varieties to sprinkle each french fry in a super-sized order with a different kind. Proliferating like the pedigreed teas, coffees, chocolates and olive oils of the moment, upscale salts now come in a multitude of colors and textures and with unique life stories. (They also come flavored with everything from saffron to lavender, but that's another story.)
There's salt from Sicily and Cyprus, the Andes mountains in Bolivia and the Himalayas of Pakistan. There are salt “flakes” and “pearls” from ancient Australian river beds; black salt from India; and salt tinted with medicinal clay from the island of Molokai.
Bamboo salt, sea salt that's roasted in bamboo cylinders plugged with yellow mud, is a staple of Korean markets. And Dead Sea salt from Israel is equally at home in the bathtub or the roasting pan.
Passports aside, salts differ in particle size, color, p urity and usefulness.
Popcorn salt is probably the finest grain, followed closely by regular table salt. Kosher salt is slightly coarser. (Though originally developed for the preparation of kosher meats, kosher salt is now a staple in professional kitchens because the grains are easier to pick up with fingers, and its larger surface area helps the salt adhere better to meat and margarita glasses alike.)
Rock salt, used to de-ice roads and chill ice cream, is chunkier still. Salt “rocks,” offered with graters at some restaurants, can be anything from 3-inch nuggets to softball-size hunks.
Most impressive in size are the multipound salt licks that are left in fields, without graters, for livestock.
Size, together with flavor and cost, also determines how a salt will be used. Fine salt is usually used during the cooking process.
On the other hand, the coarser salts – called “finishing” salts today – are sprinkled lightly on food just before serving. Because of their bright, clean flavors and appealing textures, they offer maximum satisfaction with a minimum of sodium.
Sodium chloride content is another difference between a box of Morton salt at $1 and a tiny bottle of sel gris from Brittany that fetches 10 bucks. Sea water consists of sodium chloride along with more than 100 trace elements such as calcium, magnesium, potassium and bromine.
Mechanically evaporated table salt, such as Morton, is approximately 99 percent sodium chloride, meaning all the trace elements are removed. Most table salts are highly refined – chemically cleaned and bleached, then treated with anti-caking additives and, occasionally, with dextrose to cover the bitter taste imparted by those additives.
In contrast, finishing salts are usually untreated and range from about 85 percent to 92 percent sodium chloride. The elements and minerals that remain are said to give each salt its distinctive flavor and color.
Water, water everywhere.
In France, sea water is captured in clay-lined pools along the coast of Brittany and evaporated in the open air. Fleur de sel consists of the first crystals that appear on the surface as the sea water is evaporating. They are skimmed off and left in the open air to dry. The pale gray layer below, sel gris (gray salt), has a sharper, bolder flavor. For every 80 pounds of gray salt produced, 3 pounds of fleur de sel is harvested.
Flower of Bali results from sea water evaporating in the hollowed out trunks of palm trees in Bali.
And solar salt farms on the Hawaiian island of Molokai turn out two lines of premium salts, including White Silver and Red Gold, which is tinted with the legendary medicinal clay found in the islands.
However, there's no need to get your feet or hands wet in the search for top-quality natural sea salt.
Salt comes from ancient dried-up seas as well as the living oceans. In the area around Victoria, Australia, saline water is extracted from ancient riverbeds 40 feet underground. The water is dried in the sun in pans, using centuries-old evaporation techniques. The salt crystals are then put on a sieve and shaken gently. The “flakes” (finishing salt) remain on top of the sieve; the “pearls” (sold in bulk) fall through.
In Peru, pink salt is extracted from terraced salt flats in the foothills of the Andes. Large crystals of rose salt from the Andes mountains in Bolivia are so beautiful they are placed, along with graters, on the tables of trend-conscious restaurants.
Himalayan Crystal Salt, from deep within the mountains of Pakistan, is imported by American BlueGreen of Oregon. According to the company's hype, the salt does more than just season food. Referring to the salt's “bio-energetic quality,” the label says the mining process “assures that the vibration pattern, the inherent stored energy within the crystals, their essential elements, remain fully intact and vital.”
Closer to home, deep in the ground in central Utah sits a square mile of pinkish-gray salt crystals, an estimated 260 million tons of the stuff.
According to John Peterson, product development manager for Redmond RealSalt, the crystals formed about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Age, when dinosaurs roamed and a giant sea stretched from the Pacific Northwest to Nebraska. The sea receded and the water evaporated, leaving the salt in undisturbed deposits protected by thick ash from erupting volcanoes.
About 90 percent of the salt hauled from the Redmond mine today is rock salt used for de-icing roads. About 5 percent is hand-picked for the gourmet market, lightly brushed to remove dust, and sold in fine and coarse grinds.
Restaurants across the country are getting into the sophisticated seasoning act.
In 2000, chef Cyril Renaud of Brittany named his New York City restaurant Fleur de Sel and put a small dish of the prized salt on each table.
At Sea Salt, a seafood eatery in Berkeley, chef Anthony Paone uses dozens of salts in the kitchen and provides guests with porcelain ramekins of Murray River salt from Australia.
Bruce Logue, chef of Vivace in Carlsbad's Four Seasons Aviara, says he sticks to just one top-notch gray sea salt from Brittany.
“I like the Paludier because it's slightly wet,” said Logue, describing how he uses the salt on all cut pieces of meat and on crispy-skinned branzino fish. “Drier salts tend to absorb moisture from the food and melt. This one maintains its look and crunch.”
At The French Laundry in Napa Valley, diners who order foie gras are presented with a “salt service” of five or six finishing salts, including Jurassic salt from Utah and sel gris from France.
“Foie gras is fatty and tends to take on more salt, so it's a great medium for this presentation,” said chef de cuisine Corey Lee.
“We're fascinated by these things, and it's all about sharing that excitement with the guests.”
