Salt of the Earth

There is no greater taste enhancer than good ole' salt.  And Kaplan is right, it goes in a lot of desserts.  Its greatest function is to enhance the flavor that is already inherent within the food that it graces.  This is true of sweet foods just as much as savory.  You use just enough that you'd never notice it was there but you sure would notice if it wasn't.

In the recent locavore trend, there was a competition among three New York chefs to make 3-course gourmet meals with ingredients as local as they could get.  The closer an ingredient was to home, the higher the points on the chef's score.  All three chefs lost points for using imported salt.  None of them apologized.  These culinary artists simply would not compromise on the use of salt.

Starbucks, bless them, will put a salt topping on their "Signature Hot Chocolate".  I get my hot cocoas in the "short" cup, with the salt top, and it is the best thing Starbucks sells.  

the "salt cairn" where members of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1805 boiled sea water 24 hours a day is still a great attraction around here - the resulting salt was used to preserve meat and fish for the return trip to Missouri as well as to season their food enroute.  Probably one would call it Pacific Sea Salt?

Salt...a subject I can really sink my teeth into. I love all gourmet, natural, non-processed sea salts.  Coarse ground of course.  My favorites would include Fleur de sel (a french sea salt harvested off the coast of Brittany)  Hawaiian Alaea, and Grey.  I only use a salt mill just like my pepper.  Salt and pepper can really make or break any food.  Table salt is disgusting!  The taste of iodine is gross.  I am certainly no expert but I know what I like.  Salt isn't a deep, religious, subject for me but I can get a little snobby about it.     

That picture above is my own little shaker. The dear thing accompanies me everywhere. I'm no snob, however. I'll take it however I may, and I carry the salvaged little paper packets in my purse for times of alfresco necessity.  A saltoholic perhaps, some might say salt hoor, but not I. Hold the iodine, please, and bring me a dish of salmon.

Jonathan-OF COURSE the best of salt comes from Ireland. Everyone knows that *sniff*. And your radish ritual I first learned at elevenses in the South of France. This is de rigueur upon the groaning Gallic board. If you are using the standard orbish radish then you MUST try the elongated, ovoid French Breakfast variety-mildly sweet, crunchy, generous and forgiving to a fault. The prince of rufous tubers, and no mistake.

I take salt without care, and my blood pressure remains at the low end of the normal range due to regular exercise, clean living, and pure thoughts. Love it.

Life is good.

I grew up playing with chemicals (dad started as an organic chemist and my best friend's father -- a research chemist -- had the basement stocked with almost every chemical known to man...)

When I hear salt, I see the periodic table of elements shimmering in my mind's eye: the map to the hidden nature of visitble world....  Memories of bottles filled with sodium choride, potassium chloride, ammonium chloride, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, and so on. Ionic bonds, negative and positive ions....   Wow! Salts!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salts_(chemistry)

And the next image after salts is CRYSTALS, since most of the salts organized themselves into neat patterns.  And our obsession: growing crystals.  (Copper sulfate was my favorite: so beautiful!!!)  If you folks have never seen these, check out this link.... so very, very cool!  http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/crystals.htm#exotic

I never realized until I was an adult that most kids didn't grow up in a world super-saturated (yep, that's a pun) with the magic and mystery of chemistry! 

Wow, salts!  Neat form of matter!

I like salt, it makes things taste good.

I really do like salt.

Salt is really good in pasta.

It's good on toast.

I salt my vegetables.

My soup.

The list goes on. Salt is really good.

I like my salt on pizza. My boys like salt on slugs.

I like to picture my salt in a tuxedo t-shirt, or singin lead vocals for lynyrd skynyrd.

“When life hands you lemons - break out the tequila and salt”

This is how twisted my mind works. I read Mr. Peterman's paragraph that describes how valuable salt was in biblical times and how lot's wife was turned to salt, for looking back on Sodom/homosexuality, and thought, "So God basically increased her value, right?"

I'm thinking that 100 pounds of salt was worth way more than 100 pounds of woman back then.

I'm also thinking this should be printed in a gay rights pamphlet somewhere, stat! 

Kosher Salt for baking & cooking Please, Pickling Salt on the Popcorn & Ground Sea Salt on anything that needs it for dinner.  I never realized how important salt was until I started watching Alton Brown's Good Eats on Food Network.  Most all of his recipes have kosher salt in them.

Jonathon Eells ~ I would not have a job if it wasn't for Jane Morton-Norton Heiress to the Morton Salt $.  She started our station in the U.P. of Michigan & the call letters are her intitals. My station would not exist if she hadn't invested in the "new" idea of T.V. in the 50's. So I owe my living to Salt & it kind of gives a different meaning the phrase "working in the salt mines" around here....

Oh, and lest I derail the salt talk too early this morning with my biblical logic, I also way over-salt my baked goods. Chocolate chip cookies—extra half teaspoon of salt. Plus, even though Martha scowls at me when I do, I use salted butter in my cookies, too. Love the salty sweet. 

Rings,

Was her name really 'Morton-Norton?' If so, I think that's the best argument ever for not hyphenating a last name. Just give it up, girl. Gawd. 

I prefer nutritional yeast on my popcorn. There is this guy outside of Portland OR who makes "Parma." It's basically just crushed walnuts and nutritional yeast and sea salt. Really good!!

http://store.foodfightgrocery.com/parmalarge.html

MissIve ~ Yes she was Miss Jane Morton & she married a Mr. Norton & Hyphenated the name. as not to lose her Heiress standing is most likely why she hyphenated it.  

Salt=good seasoning.

Thanks, Miss ive.  Your "Lot's Wife Salt Arbitrage" remark put tea and biscuits on the screen first thing today!  Well done.  

Not five minutes after my blasphemous salt post and there's a Christian reform group following me on Twitter. 

Dude, who tattled? Who? 

Jonathan,

Am offering you a humble bow, but it is difficult to execute from under my desk, where I am currently hiding lest I be turned to salt myself after that post.

Also, thank you kindly for your efforts on my typewriter hunt. Am back to the book full-force after the Lark hunt, and will need one indeed.

Only I think this draft calls for more salt. It's a little bland. 

Wheatgrass...I like Ron White's quote better "When life gives you lemons, find someone who's life has given them vodka...and have a party."

"Salty dog" by Flogging Molly is the song of the day.

Absolutely love sweet and salty!  Chocolate covered anything (pretzels, popcorn, nuts, potato chips), I love to mix cheese and caramel popcorn too.  The list could go on forever.  I had plans to eat healthy today but thanks to Mr. P, I am craving foods that definately do not qualify. 

Have written about Ayelet Waldman's book, Bad Mother, at my site today. 

Think it's only fair that I confess one of my own Bad Mother moments, involving salt. I actually have an entire resume of said moments, but only one, thankfully, that fits this category. So far.

I met a girlfriend at a gourmet deli (the kind that has 17 types of salt available) for 'girl talk' and tea. My oldest son was just about two, and he was in tow. He was always in tow then, so I got pretty good at pacifying him when it was time for 'girl talk.'

I let him pick a bagel to keep him busy. There were about twenty different varieties in cool brown sacks, all arranged at his height in an old farm watering trough. He chose a sea salt bagel. And I let him.

He was so quiet gnawing on it and I was so engrossed in conversation (no doubt about which of our friend's husband's was sleeping with whom), that I didn't look down at him for a good twenty minutes. Maybe longer, as long as we're confessing.

And when I did, the kid looked like Angelina Jolie. Lips swollen past reasonable pertness. 

Ladies, if you learn one thing from my mistake, it should be that a sea salt bagel is a fantastic way to accomplish Angelina Jolie lips for a big evening out. Just gnaw it two-year-old style for roughly twenty mintutes. Or more.  

- miss ive 

the bagel trick...

is a little weird...

Give me olive oil, sea salt and fresh out-of-the-oven crusty Italian bread and I can conquer the universe.

Give me warm water and salt to irrigate my sinuses with and I can breathe freely all winter. This too is needed if I am to conquer the universe despite having a head cold.

A french fry without salt is naught but a hot, greasy potato.

And Jonathan E. is absolutely correct in his assessment of Starbucks "Salted Carmel Hot Chocolate" drink. I'll take a venti please with an espresso chaser.

These posts "are making me thirsty."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su_o4Nvmr_M 

The link doesn't work. But if you type: 'pretzels are making me thirsty' in the search box at YouTube, it will be worth your while. George hanging out window yelling at the parked cars. Priceless.

Off for lunch. Salt with a side of corned beef and sour kraut. Salt with a side of vinegar chips.  

Rings, that is a great story.  From now on, I'll be able to say "Hey, I know somebody who really does work in a salt mine..." 

Fast food salt...Wendy's has the best tasting salt in the business, AND its ground so fine that it actually clings to the food instead of bouncing off like other salts.  My family thinks I'm nuts but Sir Boyscout agrees with me so I know I'm not totally crazy.

As a kid I consumed everything salty and in quantities that would make an average human gag.  My mom thought it was a nutrient deficiency and had me tested, turned out I just like salt. 

I am making salty pepitas to bring to work tomorrow for a halloween treat, and blood shot eyeballs (deviled eggs)

Not only did Roman soldiers carry it as a means of barter, they were even paid, in part, in salt. It's where we get our word "salary."

And, congratulations, Phillies!

salty pepitas? they sound good  ~ Am thinking I need the recipe...

Nachista:  So love the deviled eggs for Halloween.  I made 4 dozen for my halloween bash last week and every single one was eaten.  I use sliced olives and pimento for the eyes and paprika for the bloodshot part.  How do you do yours?  I have a vast array of other really awesome halloween foods if you are ever interested (yummy mummy, goblin cheeseball, and haunted forest just to name a few).

By the way...reference my plead for costume ideas in yesterdays post.  I have decided to be Bonnie (of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde) for halloween.  White blouse... conspicuously unbuttoned, tight black skirt, got the blonde hair already, black hose and stilettos, and a machine gun.  Any other accessories I need to add?  Costume competitive gets a little out of hand at my workplace.  Love it!!!!!! 

As a kid I always thought it was a very neat magic trick to turn somebody into salt.  I used to imagine a really white lady statue standing there looking back scoping out the action as God messed with those two towns. 

As a kid I had a book with pictures of an underground salt mine and it was all REALLY, REALLY WHITE!  I had never thought of a mine as being all white!  Growing up near the coal fields of Pennsylvania, I always thought of mines as being really black and dusty...

And then there were the two really neat lakes: Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea, where you could float really high because the water was so salty it 'bouyed your up'.  (I've never had the chance to swim in either lake, a big disappointment since I hear neither place is particularly recommended for vacations any more.)

When I moved to Texas in my 30s I was very impressed when I learned that the local 'hills' on the flat coastal plain were the tippy tops of enormous subterranean mountains of salt (salt domes), and that they were early discovered to be great places to drill oil wells.  (The black stuff -- and natural gas -- get caught up in the nooks and crannies where the protruding domes stick up from 'way down' through geologic layer after geologic layer.)  Just south of Houston one salt dome is covered with TV and communications towers (the highest land around) and mostly abandoned horseheads (pumps) from old oilfields.  And along McHard Road (which crosses the top of the dome) is a salt production plant.  (It's not really a mine, since they pump hot water down pipes and suck up the resulting brine as it returns...)

If anyone is concerned, I realize I made a goof.  It should have been "Costume competitiveness". Sorrrry! 

Back from lunch in a more serious mood. Ordered everything with 'extra MSG,' and it sucked all the fun out of me.

Anyone ever hear of the new trend to use celeric root, ground finely, to 'salt' food in a healthier manner? Ever notice how salty celery tastes?

And what's up with nitrates? 

Mackdaddy, you need a beret to finish off your bonnie look, or a fedora.  The pepitas are really easy and we usually do them right after carving the pumpkin.  You just clean, rinse, and drain the pumpkin seeds, put them in a bowl and toss in any seasonings you like (we do salt and onion powder).  Spread the seeds in a single layer on a sil-pat or a greased cookie sheet and then bake in a preheated oven at 350 until the seeds are toasty about 10-15 minutes.  Take them off the sheet and let them cool completely...serve and enjoy.

I used to use ketchup for the blood shot eye eggs, but this year I found a new trick that I hope will work.  Boil the eggs, when they are almost finished turn off the heat, scoop out the eggs, put vinegar and red food coloring in the water, crack the eggs on the counter (but don't peel off the shell), then place the eggs back in the warm water for 15-20 minutes and the food coloring should absorbs through the cracks.  For the yolk filling I'll add food coloring to make the irises blue or green. I'll let you know if it works.

When I was going through massage school we had a spa therapies class where we were taught about aromatherapy, body wraps, skin treatments, and exfoliation treatments.  One exfoliation treatment is untreated sea salt mixed with lemon essential oil and rose water, you take the wet mixture and rub it over the skin for a few seconds to scrub off the dead skin. 

We were told repeatedly to NEVER EVER use table salt, iodized salt, or any kind of chemically treated salt because it could cause skin burns.  A couple guys from class decided to find out if it really did, they mixed tap water and mortons iodized table salt and scrubbed down one of the guys backs.  He couldn't wear a shirt for 3 days because it burned his skin and was it was too painful for him to have anything touching the burns.  He said it felt like the equivalent of a severe sunburn.

WHICH ONE WOUD YOU CHOOSE FOR BONNIE TO WEAR?

WELL THE LINKS DIDN'T PRINT.  The three choices are: the English Felt Hat, the Basque Beret, or the Handsome thug Cap?

MackDaddy,

A pin that says, "I (heart) dangerous killers." 

hahaha Missive

I think Mr. Peterman is taking away our linking privileges. Don't make me post a link to a picture of a picket sign. That, come to think of it, won't link to a picture of a picket sign. 

We could resort to drawing pictures with letters. Like this salt shaker:

*******

*******

*******

*******

Yes. That's a salt shaker. 

Let's see if this salt lick, I mean 'link' works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCV5yGKWjv4

MissIve:  love the link.  I love your vibrant and sometimes off-beat comments.  You make my mundane life so much richer. 

MackDaddy,

Back at ya, cupcake. I know you're rocking out to Salt n Peppa right now. Puh-push it real good! 

I googled "Bonnie" and I can't find any really interesting photos.  I have never seen the movie...(ok, so I am not a movie buff) and I have no idea what I am doing.  But I want to be as authentic as possible.  Did she smoke?  Anything I should really know about her character?  I think her last name was Parker and she was blonde (got that part covered).  I found a beret.  I will make a machine gun from my grandson's large water gun covered with aluminum foil.  Some of the other employees have shared their costume ideas and here is a sampling:  Sarah Palin (she'll win), a geisha, a cowboy, flapper, Pocohontas, 1970's soul singer, a box of rocks, and Frankenstein.  The others are very secretive and won't divulge any priviledged costume information. 

Happy Hallooooooween!    

When I was a child, growing up in Canada, the winters were icy and salt was put on the roads to melt the ice (looking back on that, I can't figure out how salt melts ice - absorbing water? Making the ground thirsty?). Either way, when I was younger, against the wishes of my parents, I used to like to lick the little salt crystals dropped all over the pavement. This was probably unhealthy.

I'm rather embarrassed to admit that my knowledge of salt is limited to the coarse-grind kosher I use for cooking and the occasional salt-rimmed margarita glass. Many of you appear to be quite knowledgeable about this subject. If you have the chance, perhaps you could please explain to this salt-neophyte: 1) why I should spend much more money to buy fancy salt, 2) where I would find these salts, and 3) with so many different kinds, where does one begin in the tasting/testing process? Thank you. I look forward to being enlightened.

The only thing I recall about sodium chloride (other than it crystalline structure) is this...

"Sir Humphrey Davy

Abominated gravy

And shall live in odium

For having discovered sodium."

drdgscott, Congratulations to the Phillies and their Phans.

Jonathan Eells, I will make it a point to try Starbuck's Signature Hot Chocolate, with the salt topping. Anything that contains chocolate always makes me happy!

MACKDADDY1, I knew I should have picked a costume out of the sexy (not the non-sexy) idea folder. Love the Bonnie idea. For pictures from the movie, with Faye Dunaway, try http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061418/mediaindex

Kindlee,

Last Sunday's "Sunday Morning" show featured a "The History of Salt" segment that I found to be very educational and interesting. It also had references to sources of exotic salts as well as salt tasting events.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/26/sunday/main4546110.shtml

"when it rains, it pours"

PeterLake, Thank you. It's a very interesting article. (There's that ridiculous rhyme, again!) The links show salt "samplers" that can be ordered...some quite expensive. I'd probably have to decide between salt and something from the JP catalog...hmmmmm. I certainly don't mean to seem Neanderthal-like but, pretty colors aside, doesn't it all just taste the same? Are there certain salts that should be paired with certain types of foods?

I'm a popcorn freak and getting some great ideas here. Pickling salt? Parma (where can I go in the greater Puget Sound area to find some)? Usually I use a combination of savory seasoning salts and ground Parmesan cheese—the kind you buy in a shaker, home-ground doesn't stick. Dr. Bronner used to make a seasoning salt that went wonderfully well on popcorn but I haven't seen it in a long time.

After my dad's first heart attack back in the late 60s salt was permanently eliminated from his diet. Tried one of his "salt substitutes" once—totally unsatisfying. How bland his poached eggs must have tasted without the traditional Lowry's.

My pantry currently contains Himalayan Pink Salt, 3 varieties of smoked salt (chardonnay, alderwood and hickory), black truffle salt (amazing over pasta), gray sea salt, Kilauea black salt, flaked sea salt, pyrimidal salt from Bali, fleur de sal, and the old standbys of rock and kosher salt.  All have their unique place in the kitchen and add subtle yet distinctive nuances to a dish.

Kindlee: A bit of advice about 'varieties of salt'... NEVER ask a chemist! 

I've been thoroughly shot up for telling folks that dilute acetic acid is dilute acetic acid (aka vinegar), that sodium hypochlorite is sodium hypochlorite (aka bleach), etc.  I had to admit that ethanol is NOT ethanol (gin is not the same as vodka).  And all those additives in common table salt must be just like the different colorants and flavors in the varieties of dilute acetic acid.  They must make a difference!  

Oh, and never use the words natural or organic around a chemist, either.  He'll point out that arsenic and cyanide are both natural -- and that organic simply means 'containing carbon'.  He'll then point out that coal, graphite, and diamonds are all organic -- and all simply different crystals of carbon.

Yep, best not to start talking about salt in hearing of a chemist!  REALLY!

Vinegars, Oils, and Wines taste distinctively unique. Are salts really more about the aesthetics, texture, and presentation of a dish; rather than an actual taste difference? 

If the salts have flavor additives, such as the chardonnay, alderwood and hickory smoked, then I can imagine that they would taste differently. But, if it's a matter of an impurity imparting a color, like diamonds, then wouldn't a diamond be a diamond and salt be salt - simply of a different hue? Or am I totally confused?

I'm not a gourmet, nor a chemist. I'm not trying to make this difficult...just attempting to increase my understanding of something new. Thank you for being patient with me :)

Other than grinding coarse sea salt, which I probably do as much for the ritual of the act as for the tast, I've never been tempted to try all the different varieties.  I think I shall, however, now that I've had the double-click on the subject this past Sunday morning's television show and today's article.

I'll check out the local Wialliams Sonoma and report back.

I think that food is nothing more than a transportation device for salt.

Kindlee, I think part of any answer to you is that "salt" doesn't mean "salt".  Yes, I'm obtuse on the hobbyist level, usually, but I might be moving up-market just now. 

Certainly there is the chemical definition of salt, being NaCL, and whenever one describes "saltiness" then it is that basic compound alone that figures into the description.  But where salt is measured as a component of food, there are many more things to be appreciated and just pure "saltiness" isn't really sufficient.  Furthermore, as a species we didn't evolve in concert with pure salt as a chemical substance.  Our genetic forebears, when they could get it, had salt that was gloriously rife with impurities and the appreciation of which (Jung backs me up here) resonates in our collective palate to this day.

My infant theory here, the collective, palatal unconsciousness of salt, has some empirical legs in the way that certain racial groups are happy milk consumers (my group) and others are definitely not.  If your genetic ancestry didn't evolve with cows, and milk, and cheese, then chances are you don't much care for it in the present day, right?  I've got good friends who've adopted Chinese girls, who really don't do milk.  

I think salt benefits from a similar analysis, but across a much broader tableau.  Right, because everybody's culture grew up with salt.  It's just part of our chemical make-up, to need salt.  But as a flavor, I don't think that the human species is adapted to consuming the base chemical compound of salt, much in the same way that we're "air breathers" who can't handle pure oxygen.  We need a mix of stuff in our air; we need a mix of stuff in our salt.  The "palatal unconsciousness" craves salt, but with some earth in it.  A little algae, maybe some real vegetable matter, perhaps a clump of dirt here and there. 

Thus the benefit of these foo-foo gourmand salts, packaged with their environmentally derived, contextual impurities, is that they harken back to the salt that our bodies and our palates "expect" - if you will.  Sure, there are refined salts that are the chemical essence of the flavor, but I deeply believe that this sort of salt is no more appropriate for the human animal than, say, eating Twinkies in place of bread.  

Jonathan Eells, Thank you for that insight. Morton salt vs Celtic Sea Salt, is like: Twinkies vs Artisan breads; Jarred smooth spagetti sauce vs chunky homemade, with ripe plum tomatoes and herbs straight from the garden; Packaged square breakfast bars vs from-scratch, warm-from-the-oven scones; Pre-formed deli sandwich "meat" vs a roasted slice of the real animal; Margarine vs. freshly churned butter; Canned tuna vs fresh sushi grade...I think I'm beginning to see the light. In essence, then, the complexities of nature vs artificial refinement. I'm suddenly feeling downright (and downleft) deprived. The new JP duds will have to wait (for just a bit) while I begin to explore this new world of real salts.

Thank you, one and all. I suddenly thought of the old TV commercial (for a margarine?) - "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" - few benefits do we reap and how high a price we pay!

How nice. Just saw that both the Williams-Sonoma and King Arthur Flour websites have some salts that will not break the bank. The JP clothes can come off the wait list! 

Kindlee:

Try your local Whole Foods or gourmet shops as well.  They carry many of the same salts, and you save on shipping.  Do try the black sea salt on chocolate-dipped caramels.  Truly decadent.

OncDoc, Thank you. My closest Whole Foods is about an hour away but, I think it will be well worth the trip. Your suggestion sounds heavenly!

I love old -fashion salt, only on, my fresh cut red tomatoes from my garden; nothing-like a "Tomatoe Sandwich"; I use a variety of salts in my cooking, but I do use salt-free butter in my bake goods; Remember: watch your sodium intake/ if your feet are swollen and retaining water it is likely that you are retaining fluids around your heart! Balance you diet and use salt in moderation or follow a salt restriction if your doctor advises. Try honey on foods instead of salt....I use a honey mustard dressing on chicken vegetable salad to subsitute for salt. Help save the Honey Bee, it is the only insect that provides food to man. I love the stylish fashion of Peterman's clothing.

Welcome, Gustina!! Great first post, dear-do be as voluble as you like...