SC - Next Pennsic-OT-OOP-IMPORTANT

[LrdRas@aol.com]

- -Poster: Jean Holtom <Snowfire at mail.snet.net>
 
>>  I have a question or two - to start with, where did period cooks get their 
>>  salt from?  Did they use sea salt? Or was it manufactured somewhere? 
  
>All salt used in cooking (i.e. natural sodium chloride) is sea salt.  Just
>some of the deposits are a bit older than others.  Salt is mined, not
>manufactured.

Salt mines!  Of course! (well that was obvious wasn't it!) :-)

>To call an ingredient "sea salt" is redundant and pretentious.

So what's the little blue canister in my kitchen that says, 
"White Sea Salt produced by natural evaporation" on about then?
It lists the ingredients as Sea Salt, Magnesium Carbonate, Iodide", and goes on 
to say:

"La Baliene Sea Salt is from the clear blue Mediterranean.  Evaporated to a 
sparkling white by sun and sea breezes.  It is then washed in more clear 
Mediterranean sea water...The French, as fussy about health as they are about 
food, make great claims for the rare salts contained in Sea Salt".

Is this a lot of marketing hype then and nothing more?  It seems to taste a bit 
different from the regular salt.  (I'm no culinary expert as some on this list 
obviously are, but I just wondered).

>What I have seen sold in health food stores is simply ground finer than good
>old Morton's.  

The bottom of the cannister says "Now available in Coarse Crystals"

>Some commercial products do have iodine added, since studies in
>the thirties indicated that iodine in the diet helps reduce the risk of
>goiter.
 
Correct.  Usually occurs in "landlocked" countries/states/counties where it may 
not be possible to have enough fish/sea food in the regular diet.  Switzerland 
used to be considered a prime place to develop such a disorder, also Derbyshire 
in England. (Hence it used to be called "the Derbyshire neck" - thought I'd 
throw that one in).  

Elysant

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