[Sca-cooks] gourmet sea salt

[Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur]

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 09:56:28 -0700, Mark.s.Harris at motorola.com wrote:
> The whole idea of getting salt from different regions and that you could
> taste the difference still astounds me but here is a website with more
> different types of sea salt in one place than I've seen before. The fact
> that you could make money doing this astounds me less.
> http://www.saltworks.us/index.asp
>
> I guess if you had the money you could put together a salt tasting party.
> Some of these seem to be processed with methods similar to those done in
> period, even from the same regions, maybe from the same salt pans. Some
> crystals are in a pretty raw state, much as they would have been in
> period and you can see the different crystal sizes and colors in their
> photographs.

Cook's Illuistrated did a tasting of salts in Sept 2002. They concluded that 
sea salts are best saved for use at the table, where the delicate nuances of 
flavor variation and, in particular, their special crunch can best be 
savored. They found that the largest crystals won the most points when 
sprinkled on a steak - Maldon Sea Salt won that round of tests. In cooking, 
they found little or no variation in flavor when used in a liquid cooking 
medium. They actually downgraded the sea salts in baked goods because of 
poor dispersal - getting a "crunch" of salt in the middle of a biscuit isn't 
anyone's idea of good food.


****************
Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur
     (mka Randy Goldberg MD)
Random Tag: There aren't many things a man can do as noble as passing up a chance to show how smart he is.