In many ways, salt is always in season

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2002 | 8:36 a.m.

Despite being classed as a food additive by the USDA, nothing in the food world is more elemental than salt. The human body normally possesses 3 1/2 ounces of it, and when that substance is reduced through sweat, blood or tears, the body suffers mightily. Indeed, we cannot survive without it.

For that reason, salt has played a huge role in the development of modern societies and the economic wealth of nations. In his superb "Salt, A World History," Mark Kurlansky chronicles how ancient societies such as China and Egypt modulated their development through salt, and takes the reader on a visit to such mercantile states as medieval Genoa and Venice, whose trade life was dependent on salt.

Down through the ages, salt has been used not only as a seasoning, but for food preservation, pickling, and even mummification.

Many words and expressions in modern language are derived from this most basic substance. "To be worth his salt," is one, which harks back to when people were paid in salt. Indeed, the first syllable of the word salary is an ancient word for salt. The substance has also given us words such as soldier, salacious, even salsa.

These observations need not be taken with a grain of salt.

So just what is salt, where does it occur, and how many types of salts are used in cooking nowadays? To begin with, what we know as common salt is sodium chloride, or NaCl. Salt is present naturally in dry lake beds, in salt licks, in mines, where it is known as the mineral halite, and in the sea. Seawater is 2.6 percent salt by weight. It's one thing that we'll never run out of.

A salt is actually a chemical term for when an acidic metal forms a compound with a base. Potassium chloride and magnesium chloride, for instance, are also both salts and are used as salt substitutes for people who cannot have sodium.

At any rate, salts are always crystalline in form, and have been used to enhance the flavor of foods since before recorded history.

Go to any supermarket, and there will be a wide variety of salts on the market; but there are two basic varieties, rock salt and sea salt. Proponents of sea salt swear that it has more flavor, and while Europeans generally season their food with it, Americans use the less-expensive rock salt more often.

The difference in price is considerable. At Raley's, for instance, approximately 26 ounces of Morton's salt (a rock salt) is 59 cents. Compare this with a like-size shaker box of La Baleine (a French sea salt) and the price jumps to $3.99. Morton also makes something called Lite Salt, which has only half the sodium of regular salt, but costs the same.

There is also kosher salt, $2.19 for a 3-pound box. Raley's, and several other major supermarket chains, also carries a new product by the spice company McCormick's, 2 1/2 and one-half ounces of sea salt in a refillable grinder. It's rather pricey, but the company wants to demonstrate how much livelier a grind of freshly ground sea salt will make food taste, and hopes that sea salt will catch on with mainstream consumers.

Confused yet? Here is an explanation of some of the different categories of salt on the market, their properties, and their uses:

First there is ordinary table salt, which is not sea salt. This salt is basically divided into two categories: iodized, which means that there is added iodine; and non-iodized. Depending on what the salt is being used for, there is a big difference. The iodized salt, for instance, darkens pickles and inhibits the bacterial fermentation used to produce certain foods, such as sauerkraut.

Table salt is not generally pure salt. It usually contains small amounts of calcium silicate, an anti-caking agent, and of dextrose, a stabilizer. It is unlikely these additives are detectable to the taste buds, but some people insist they can taste them.

Sea salt, which can be either gray or grayish white, is produced by evaporation. Think of it as condensed, dehydrated sea water. The most expensive of the sea salts is fleur de sel, literally "flower of salt," a vivid, whitish gray salt flecked with minerals, that is quite literally skimmed directly off the surface of the sea off the French coast near Brittany.

Fleur de sel has a higher mineral content than other salts, and a variety of flavors permeate it. Some think of it more of a condiment than a salt, and a few sprinkles will often do.

Four ounces of this substance sells for around $8.95, and is available at gourmet food stores such as Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table (8 ounces is $13.95). Either it will come in a canister or in a canvas bag. A one-kilo canister (2.2 lbs.) is $44.95 at Sur La Table.

Kosher salt was developed for the preparation of kosher meats. Its coarser grains make it adhere better to the meats. It's also good for lining a margarita glass, because the larger grains help it stick to the side of a glass.

Conversely, it is not the salt one would want to use for, say, popcorn. The salt sold as popcorn salt is simply a finer grained rock salt, the better to penetrate those little kernels.

Specialty stores or the Internet carry a few other exotic types of salt. There is something called black salt, which has a strong sulfuric taste, and which is favored by Indian cooks. This salt is available at any Indian market, and there are several in Las Vegas.

Harder to obtain is pink salt, or Hawaiian salt, a light pinkish brown salt that gets its color from Hawaiian clay. It is called alaea salt on the islands, and the natives of Hawaii who swear by its unique flavor can't do without it.

Pass the salt, please.