NaCl

I have an obsession with salt in my food. Yes, even after all the lies I tell my patients about hypertension and salt, I'm still salting my food quite liberally. See King Lear, where Cordelia announces that she loved her father as fresh meat loves salt! I'm not going to nag on about the political (Ghandi and his Salt March to Dandi) or cultural (Magick and salt offerings) aspects of this humble mineral, but just to give a brief introduction to the various salts available for culinary use.

The salt as most people know it is table salt - a kind of refined salt obtained either from the sea or from rock salt deposits, with the addition of iodine and anti-caking agents like magnesium carbonate to keep it free-flowing. Typically it is very fine-grained and dry, but unfortunately has little place in an epicure's kitchen. It tends to have a chemical after-taste with a bland undertone (if you can use "bland" to describe salt), but wins out in terms of cost. One excellent use of table salt is when you just need the saltiness of it in a pungent or heavy dish, such as soups or stews. Seriously, no one would care tuppence whether you use table salt or whichever salt in these dishes.

Many recipes also call for Koscher salt. It is so named as it helps to make meat Koscher, by sucking out the blood in meats before cooking. Koscher tends to be coarser, usually in flake form, and does not contain iodine, but otherwise I would just treat it as per table salt - a salt to be used in preparation of foods or for heavy dishes.

What my family uses a lot of though, is coarse rock salt. These are in fact cheaper than table salt but are unrefined, huge grains about the size of crushed gravel. My mom uses this for washing vegetables and also for drawing out blood in meats - essentially using it as a more affordable Koscher. Coarse rock salt also has another great role to play when you're baking meats - try encasing a whole chicken in coarse rock salt and baking it! There are also a large variety of rock salts being sold as novelty salts, including Kala Namak (Indian Black Salt) and the Himalayan pink rock salt in the above picture. One thing I like about rock salt though, is that they also contain other minerals in addition to NaCl. Not that it does anything to the taste though, it just feels healthier. =) And the pink rock salt makes for an attractive accessory when you put it into an acrylic salt grinder on the dining table.

Now comes the sea salts! These are amazing. I like to use sea salt for one situation only, and that is as a garnish on top of the dish.

The very best of the lot is Fleur de Sel, literally flower of salt. This is the first layer of evaporated sea water in salt pans, which is scraped off by hand. Fleur de sel is very slightly moist, and is less salty than table salt. Taste-wise it has a very delicate aroma reminsescent of the ocean. Use it very sparingly, scattering it by hand as a finishing to simple dishes. It will add a touch of crunch and refreshment to further lift the flavour of very fresh seafood. (The ultra-fresh salmon belly fillet briskly seared in oil and served with a scattering of fleur de sel I made still remains in my memory as a near-ethereal experience in my bedroom. Food orgasm.Who needs caviar or foie gras?) And Fleur de sel on sweet caramel is simply heaven. This stuff is not cheap - a small bottle set me back by $15, but trust me, it lasts a long, long, long, long time.

The next up is sel gris, or grey sea salt. Like fleur de sel, sel gris is also another hand-harvested salt, and is also somewhat moist. The grey colouration comes from the minerals the salt picks up from the salt flats. They come in various sizes, from coarse to ultra fine. As again with good sea salts, use sel gris sparingly and as a final adornment. Shown below is my precious jar of Sale con Tartufo Negro, which is actually sel gris with bits of dried truffle. Truth be told, it's just a novelty thing, the truffle taste isn't that strong and will fade with age actually, but it really does make a nice touch.

In addition to the above 2 well-known sea salts, each region produces their own characteristic salts impregnated with various minerals from that locality, making them very sublimely different. As such, you may chance upon Hawaiian sea salts that are blood red in colour, or black sea salts which have picked up volcanic deposits (not to be confused with the very lame "charcoal" sea salts which have added activated charcoal). There are also a variety of salts which have been smoked, and different smoking woods will impart different characteristics to them. As again, use these sparingly, and as final relishes.

Finally, I must also mention this salt I have used, Murray River salt. This Australian river salt is light pink in colour and is sold as flakes. Being in flake form gives it an incredible crunch, but I do feel that it is a tad saltier than sea salt, so use it carefully.

As always, I'm still on the lookout for unique salts to add to the collection, so I will appreciate any heads-up for sources and types that I may have missed out!