Salt

by Vicki Reich, from the September 2001 Newsletter

The most frequently asked question at the Co-op lately is "Do you have sea salt?" For a while I thought there was a new health fad out there that included sea salt, but I've since learned that it's good for healing body piercings and what most people are looking for is our bulk sea salt.

However, the Co-op carries five different kinds of salt and I started wondering what was the difference between all of them. If you ask a chemist what table salt is, she'd say NaCl, sodium chloride, so how can there be a flavor difference if salt is just salt? I was determined to find out. I was pretty sure no one else wanted to taste test salt with me, so I hunkered down in my office with my big bottle of water and got to work.
My first sample was our bulk sea salt and I was amazed by its salty qualities. Seriously, it was salty but not intensely so.

Next, I tried the bulk coarse sea salt, which had a nice crunch to it and a slightly saltier flavor.
Next up was the "brown salt" as Laura calls it. The proper name for it is Real Salt, which we carry in bulk. This is a mined salt and it too is salty but with a more complex flavor.

The first packaged salt I tried was Lifestream Iodized Sea Salt. It was very fine and very salty with a bitter taste and lingering aftertaste, probably from the iodine.

Next, I tried Eden Sea Salt. This salt is slightly gray in color and looks and feels damp. It is hand harvested off a beach in Brittany, France. This salt tasted the most like the sea that is comes from. It was very fine and saltier than most of the other salt, but not as salty as the Lifestream salt. That was it for tasting salt that the Co-op.
I have quite an extensive personal collection of salt (I have no idea how I developed such a collection but it really bugs my husband, who is a firm believer that salt is salt) so I took a big gulp of water and continued sampling.

Years ago, I got a sample of something called solar sea salt that was touted as the best salt money could buy (however, since I didn't pay for it I'll never know). I do know that it too tasted like salt. It was unusual because it had a very strong salt taste at first that quickly dissipated.

The next salt from my collection was also a free sample. La Baleine is a coarse iodized sea salt. Unlike the Lifestream salt, it did not have a bitter aftertaste. It was saltier than most of the other salts and it is a smaller grain than our bulk coarse sea salt.

The last salt I tried (which was a good thing since my fingers were starting to swell) was a salt my mother brought back from Provence, France. As far as my limited French can determine, this salt is harvested from a region called the Camargue and is highly prized in France. It is my favorite because it has a more complete flavor than all the other salts I tried. It has an almost buttery taste to it. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), you'll have to go to France to get some. If you're as fascinated by salt as I am you'll have to check out www.saltinstitute.org. The web site has tons of information about salt and a couple hundred uses for it besides making your popcorn taste good. Happy shaking.

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