Salt -- which are the best?

[orangewasabi]

A friend has offered to bring me any salts I may request from Australia & NZ. The only caveat is I have to specific which ones, not just leave it up to her.

So, any must have recommendations? I'm not particularly interested in flavoured salts, but more, salts from local sources which would be unavailable outside the region.

One of the best salts I've had was on a Air New Zealand flight -- the business class meals all came with a little glass dish with a rubber lid -- containing first layer salt crystals. Really lovely

[Pat Churchill]

A friend has offered to bring me any salts I may request from Australia & NZ. The only caveat is I have to specific which ones, not just leave it up to her.

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As far as New Zealand salt goes, I like white Marlborough Flaky Sea Salt. Unless someone else has entered the field in the past year or so, I think it's the only finising salt produced there.

Since moving to Oz I have been using peach coloured Murray River salt as a finishing salt.

I'll be interested to read other people's choices as I'd like to try some other varieties. Did I read somewhere about one restaurant offering a dozen different salts? The cynic in me says NaCl is NaCl but I guess some of these salts have unique "characteristics"

Edited January 27, 2007 by Pat Churchill (log)

[Shalmanese]

The Murry River Salt is very pretty to look at and the texture is great. I would just get that, unless you're a major salt collector, nothing else is distinctive enough to be worth bringing back.

[Cookwithlove]

fine sea salt - fleur de sel

[Shinboners]

Did I read somewhere about one restaurant offering a dozen different salts? The cynic in me says NaCl is NaCl but I guess some of these salts have unique "characteristics" 

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I think it was the French Laundry that may have offered a variety of salts.

In Justin North's "Becasse" cookbook, he's got a chapter on Murray River Gourmet Salt, and it seems that the flavour differences occur due to the other minerals that get mixed in with the NcCl.

Of more interest is what North does with his salt. He has recipes for the following: aromatic confit salt, curing salt, citrus salt, dried fish seasoning, dried porcini salt, seaweed tea salt, celery salt, and smoked celaric salt.

[orangewasabi]

We get the/some Murray River salt here in Toronto.

I'll definately go for the Marlborough.

One salt I have her from Australian is called Horizon -- it's from the region around Pyramid Hill in North Victoria. It's a flake salt too, a bit sharper than Maldon.

There are most certainly flavour differences with salts from different areas, as mentioned, because of the minerals from the area. Unless you're really into it, the differences might not be so big a deal, but I really love salt and love the different nuances.

[Shinboners]

Here's a link to an older discussion about salt on this forum:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=60140