Buzzkill: Gourmet Salt

The explosion of popular interest in edible culture that has occurred over the course of the past few decades has spurred the development of vast quantities of new, high-end consumer food products. Salt, seemingly the simplest of all spices, is no exception to this trend. However, it also stands out as an example of how these products play purely on the momentum of gourmandism in the abstract. As a preliminary example of how deep the bullshit-hole goes, consider this $110 Bamboo Sampler Chest, which features 24 one-ounce jars of "the world’s most fabulous salts." The chest is recommended as a gift for someone with a "truly discriminating palate"; indeed, discriminating would be a severe understatement.

The salt we eat is approximately 99% pure sodium chloride. The remaining 1% consists of a variety of secondary minerals in trace amounts. Typically, salt will contain as many as 10 or 15 additional minerals in varying quantities. The discriminating palate of the true salt lover, presumably, would be identifiable on the basis of a capability for assessing the interplay between the microscopic quantities of obscure rocks that comprise this single percentile. Realistically, human taste buds are simply not sophisticated enough to make such a distinction. In the context of a dish where salt contributes only a minute percentage of what is eaten in the aggregate, the idea that a person could distinguish between different "varieties" of salt is even more ludicrous.

This conclusion is borne out in an essay from Jeffrey Steingarten's second book, It Must've Been Something I Ate. Steingarten conducted an elaborate salt-tasting experiment, subjecting 20 participants to a 13-round study. Private booths kept at room temperature housed the tasters as they evaluated saline solutions in which a representative spectrum of different kinds of salt had been dissolved. Ultimately, the results suggested that none of the participants were able to coherently distinguish bottom-of-the-line table salt from fleur de sel (which ranks among the world's most expensive salts).

So, does any reason remain to give more than cursory consideration to the particular salt we purchase? Instead of thinking of salts in terms of taste, it would be more rational to think of them in terms of texture. Table salt is finely and uniformly ground and often contains additives that prevent it from clumping. It consists of tiny flakes that easily adhere to food. Kosher salt is coarsely ground and forms in a larger, block structure, making it ideal for extracting the blood from meat in accordance with Jewish law. Rock salt will prove invaluable when you find you driveway frozen by winter's icy kiss. $15 jars of portugese finishing salt, however, would probably be best left on the shelf.