Salt is salt is salt is salt is salt.
Salt – sodium chloride – is a molecular compound; there’s only one recipe, and you can’t make it at home. Well, actually, you CAN, if you get hold of some chlorine gas and metallic sodium, but combining the two under anything but the most meticulously controlled circumstances is entirely likely to damage the immediate surroundings including possibly yourself, so it’s not a wise move. In any case, when the screaming is done and the flames die down, you’ve essentially got the same stuff you buy at the store as plain table salt: sodium chloride, consisting of stable molecules comprised of one sodium atom tightly bound to one chlorine atom. You can’t change the proportions to put your own spin on it and call it your own.
As far as that goes, salt is salt is salt is salt is salt.
What then is all the brouhaha surrounding gourmet salt?
It’s about impurities, sourcing, crystal size/shape, and sometimes, pretention.
… but mostly it’s about impurities. We’ll get back to those in a second.
There are some arguments for concerning yourself with crystal size or shape. Kosher salt, ice cream salt, and pickling salt are all types of salt with crystal sizes optimized for different uses – kosher salt for koshering (salt-curing) meat, ice cream salt for mixing efficiently with ice and lowering the freezing temperature to freeze the ice cream, and pickling salt for, well, pickles. The coarser grinds are often used for finishing dishes – think of the salt crystals you’ve seen on pretzels, or the flake salt you see in high-end steakhouses. The moment it dissolves, however, you’re back to the basic molecule, and the differences become window dressing. (I mostly use kosher salt when I cook; the larger crystal means that I’m actually using less salt than I would be if I used the same amount of table salt, which is the default expectation of most recipes. Since high blood pressure issues run in my family, less salt in the diet is better.)
Sourcing is generally a matter of mining &/or evaporation; most table salt and some types of gourmet salts are mined – or rather extracted from underground salt beds with water to form a brine, which is then subsequently evaporated to leave a sediment of salt crystals, which are subequently crushed or ground to the desired crystal size/shape. Sea salts are evaporated from sea water (big surprise).
This brings us back to impurities. The overwhelming majority of commercially available salt has impurities, no matter what it’s used for.
- Iodized table salt is typically fine-grained sodium chloride crystals that have been highly purified for the sole and express purpose of being sprayed with an iodine compound so that it contains trace amounts of sodium or potassium iodide.
- That pink Himilayan salt has various and sundry mineral impurities (e.g., rock dust) in it. So does that black volcanic salt.
- Sea salt is flavored with fish shit, seaweed and algae. Yummy!
- Sel gris has clay.
- Bamboo salt, which is the latest expensive silliness, is salt that’s packed into bamboo and roasted so that you get yummy, yummy bamboo ashes and smoke particulates mixed into your sodium chloride.
Many people will tell you that they can taste the difference, and that those flavor differences enhance the gustatorial experience.
I suppose it’s easier and more predictable than scooping up a handful of kitty litter dust to sprinkle over your food, but it has much the same end result.
All this opining is offered simply to give you a sense of perspective: recognize what you’re paying for, and shop accordingly. Just as salt is salt is salt is salt is salt, sea salt is sea salt is sea salt is sea salt, and so forth. It’s all coming from the same sea(s), it’s all coming from the same salt beds, it’s all processed the same way, and it ultimately winds up being pretty much the same stuff.
The producer may TELL you that it’s painstakingly scooped from a specific cubic yard of the Pacific Ocean by scantily clad, prettily sweating teenage Japanese virgins with quaint 14th century vessels fashioned from fabulously rare ceramics containing Yeti shit, but at the end of the day, it’s just salt. Big deal. There are more interesting (and healthier) seasonings to obsess about.
