Salt (merged topics)

[Jinmyo]

Cher Fat Guy,

Oh, right. Crudo. Does anyone have any idea of how prevalent raw or marinated fish might be in Italian cuisine(s)?

This does seem to me to be the perfect venue for a range of different salts.

I'll often use different salts on scallop carpaccio or almost raw beef, things like that, and delude myself that they have vastly different flavours like smoky, briny, woodsy etc. etc.

Oh. One place that I use ordinary Sifto's iodized table salt is in brining, like the one I have a picnic shoulder roast sitting in right now.

[Fat Guy]

I know that Batali said he was inspired by the fishermen on one of the coasts of Italy, and Grimes wrote oh, yeah, sure, I can just imagine all the fishermen making sashimi-style slices of fish and arranging baby vegetables on them.

[Liza]

Mark Kurlansky will be at Vintage New York, 482 Broome Street, on February 26 to lead a salt seminar. (also that night: Wade Moises, "sausage guru" at Lupa to discuss, you guessed it, fresh Italian sausage; and Chris Pearce "demystifies" seasonal sake). For reservations: 212-226-9463, ษ per class)

Perhaps we should have an Egullet revival meeting there?

(Edited by Liza at 6:19 pm on Feb. 3, 2002)

[lullyloo]

Interesting article in the latest Atlantic Monthly (March) about fleur de sel (or flor de sal, in this case) being harvested by marine biologists in Portugal.  Unlike the French kind, it is of an "unparalleled whiteness," because of the sunny climate in Portugal.  To quote the author, Corby Kummer:

"I crumbled the fragile wet crystals and licked some salt off my fingers.  It vaished as fast as if it were ineed snow.  The flavor was wonderfully sweet and nuanced."

It is available at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. www.zingermans.com

[cookperrync]

When I cook, I use three different types of salt.  I find that iodized salt, even when dissolved into food, still imparts a minerality that I find disgusting.  There is also a tendancy to over salt with iodized because of the porosity of the salt.  It is much easier to get away with with over-salting with kosher which has a lower porosity and excess tends to fall off in the pan.  So no iodized for me.  

I use kosher to season foods prior to cooking and during cooking.  I use a fleur de sel as a finishing salt: a few grains just to enhance.  It is especially good with fish as it tends to bring some of the "briny" qualities back to the fish.  Try it on slices of rare cooked tuna, or on bittersweet chocolate...  Finally I use a fine sea salt (Baleine) for baking.  It is as fine grained as iodized, if not more so, which makes it ideal for baking and desserts beccause it dissolves easily and distributes evenly.

Perry

[=Mark]

 The flavor was wonderfully sweet and nuanced."

Yeah, right.  Bet this guy and the Water Sommelier have a great time out on the town...

[Bux]

I like my grey salt. I could argue that it's color alone should indicate that it's more than just sodium cloride. I have good reason to suspect all sorts of trace elements and algae, or you could argue the flotsam and jetsam of of a number of tanker collisions. Surely it's as different from the mined salt as its color indicates, but I like it because I bought it from an old lady at makeshift table set up along one of the many paths between the salt ponds at Guerande in Brittany. The grains are irregular and of varying size as well as a dirty grey in color. It apears to be the essence of unrefined. I don't need to know more, it's a poetic addition to the kitchen not a science lesson.

It dissolves quite rapidly, but the fact is that I often forget to add salt until the last minute and then I use the fine grain Baleine brand sea salt from the Mediterranean. I also buy the coarser Baleine to put in my salt mill for the table because I'm afraid the impurities in the grey salt will gunk it up. Diamond Crystal Kosher salt goes into the water for pasta by the handful. Fleur de sel is really quite lovely to add at the last minute, although I'm not sure I'd have it in the house if it wasn't a gift, nor do I think I'd pay the outrageous price for the sel grise de Guerande that's charged in a fancy food shop in the states. It wold no longer remind me of the salt pools, but of the pretentious shop. That sums it up. We could have as many as five different salts in the house at one time, assuming size and shape of crystal can be legitimately called different salts. Only one of them is significantly more or less than pure sodium cloride.

[ajay]

Despite the danger of sounding ignorant, I must ask what people mean when they suggest that salt (i gather in large quantities) can be used to bring out the deep flavors of a dish?

I seem to recall reading such a comment in an article discussing the cooking of Christian Delouvier of Lespinasse

[Bux]

I've often found that when a dish lacks salt, it has almost no flavor at all, but when I add sufficient salt, my first taste is not of salt but of the other flavors of the dish. Salt seems to give a depth of flavor or allow the range of other flavors to be tasted and appreciated. I don't know why. Maybe it's the contrast of maybe salt makes our taste buds open up or become more sensitive.

[Jinmyo]

Bux, exactly. And sugar does the opposite: it closes off taste. Which is why I don't care for it. I think, biologically, "sweet" triggers "safe" while "bitter" (which I like) triggers "mebbe poison?" "Salty" triggers, "hm, what's this."

All very scientific of me, hm?

Anywho, salt heightens and lifts other flavours, brightened by its crystalline nature.

[col klink]

Vinegar is also used to enhance flavors.  I always make sure to use at least a little of both when I cook.

Is it possible to award a Noble prize to folks that invented sea salt and vinegar potato chips?

[B Edulis]

I think, biologically, "sweet" triggers "safe" while "bitter" (which I like) triggers "mebbe poison?" "Salty" triggers, "hm, what's this."

And what about umame, the lost taste? Actually the recently-accepted-by-western-food-scientist taste. The Japanese have recognised it for years. It's the taste of meatiness, also found in mushrooms, nuts and seeds, and msg. It's related to glutimates, which are, I think, associated with protein.

And, replying to Steve S.'s query, very tardily -- I taste tested salts on a perfect juicy, end of summer tomato. It was a blind taste test, but not a double-blind test. I could have been influenced, ever so subtly, by my pal who was doing the testing.

I actually blind taste test lots of things. It's fun and you learn things about flavor and aroma.

[jhlurie]

Reading the Kurlansky Book on Salt now. Unexpectedly fascinating (the "Cod" book didn't tempt me, but I knew a bit more about salt already, so I tried this one).

The book is very food oriented, but also prominetly discusses the role of salt as both currency and as a politcal and religious tool. It seems somewhat ludicrous now, but for most of history Salt was precious--a rare commodity. Modern knowledge of geology has clued us in on how common, and easy to aquire, salt is... but for most of history this was not true. And not only was Salt rare, but somehow ancient man figured out he was healthier if he licked the rock than if he didn't.

I'm only a bit into the book (about a fifth of the way--its a LONG book), but I like the way how, almost immediately, he deals with the fact that "sodium chloride" and "salt" are not synonyms, the way most people have been raised to believe (not the eGullet type of people, mind you).

He says:

Salt is a chemical term for a substance produced by the reaction of an acid with a base.

Webster's differs a bit:

any of numerous compounds that result from replacement of part or all of the acid hydrogen of an acid by a metal or a group acting like a metal : an ionic crystalline compound

Looking in some science books Kurlansky's definition works as well as Webster's if you simply insert the word "ionic" before the word "substance".

Most (but not all) forms of salt are edible, and most good for you in moderation. Yum, Magnesium Chloride! Yay, Potassium Chloride! Woohoo!

Mmm. Need some pretzels now.

[Really Nice!]

How many different salts do you have? I think I have five, but I'd have to check.

• Fleur de sel
  Grey salt
  Sea salt (course generic kind) for the salt grinder
  Hawaiian (pink) salt
  Kosher
  

I suppose it's six if you count table salt, but I only use that for absorbing fresh stains in the carpet and buffing my wok and cast iron skillets.

What do you use your different salts for?

Are there any others that I should add to my collection?

[awbrig]

I have sea salt only... (coarse and fine)

I have yet to buy any of the many interesting flavor enhanced salts out there! Anybody tried them?

Edited January 14, 2003 by awbrig (log)

[Fat Guy]

I've got two kinds of fleur de sel -- they appear to be pretty much the same, they're just two different brands. Then I've got the sea salt that comes in the red cylinder. I've got kosher salt. Regular iodized table salt. And I've got this RealSalt rock salt stuff from Utah.

[DaveFaris]

Kosher. That's it.

[col klink]

I primarily use Kosher but I also have coarse and fine (less coarse really) sea salt and *shudder* iodized table salt with "free-running" additives.

[snowangel]

I primarily use Kosher but I also have coarse and fine (less coarse really) sea salt and *shudder* iodized table salt with "free-running" additives.

You'd be right at home in my kitchen!

[Dana]

Me too, for Kosher, sea and "free-running table". I only use the table in the shaker for the table, although no one ever uses it. I have to keep rice in the shaker so it doesn't turn into the SALT ROCK FROM HELL.

Edited January 14, 2003 by Dana (log)

[nightscotsman]

Just table and kosher. fine table salt, by the way, is a better choice in baked goods, so I use it quite a bit. You don't want to bite into a chunk of undisolved, course salt in the middle of your muffin.

[wingding]

Maldon sea salt,from Great Britain. is my favorite table salt.I like the delicate,irregular flakiness.[i'm a little bit like that myself]

[Jinmyo]

Fleur de sel, kosher, coarse sea salt, Hawaiian pink, grey salt from Brittany, sel de gris, there's some kind of almost blackish stuff way back there that I was given that tastes like sulfur, table salt for scrubbing and salt roasting.

[Kikujiro]

Dietary laws aside, is kosher your Maldon? (Or is Maldon our kosher?)

I use Maldon for everything except salting boiling water (a waste) for which i keep cheaper sea salt. (Pasta wants to be cooked in much saltier water than feels right.)

[=Mark]

Davids Kosher salt for cooking

Rock salt for driveway & steps