Last week, while Buster, my loyal canine companion, and I were out for a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood (I call it a sniffabout), I decided to use the time to catch up on some of my favorite podcast listening. A Taste Of The Past is one of my go-to food podcasts, and their most recent episode is an interview with Naomi Duguid who’s newest book is all about Salt.
In the interview, Naomi talks about the importance & the history of salt, and lists some of her favorite salt uses: oignon salé (salted scallions) rubbed on chicken, salted lemons, and sauerkraut. She also speaks to how to use salt; that salt should not be tasted as a standalone ingredient, but should be used to enhance the dish, adding a special chef’s kiss - a *je ne sais quoi* if you will - something that rounds out the flavors of the dish and brings it to life. I am also very curious about the corned beef recipe which Naomi mentions towards the end of the episode. Instead of boiling it, Naomi's recipe calls for roasting the meat after it sits in salt for about 8 days, which she claims gives the dish a unique flavor. I'm intrigued!
All that salt talk reminded me of a conversation I had with my mom (The Mother Domestique) about some sauerkraut-gone-wrong that she made a couple months ago. She’d used leaves from a cabbage she grew in her own garden, and after letting it ferment, something had gone wrong. It wasn’t moldy, but it wasn’t fermented either. It was just kind of…there. She was obviously disappointed with the outcome, and was asking if I had any thoughts on what could’ve gone wrong.
My first thought was that maybe it was too salty. My mom said she tasted it and it was pretty salty, so she put a sliced potato in to try to soak up some salt, and when that didn’t really fix the fermentation issue (but it did soak up the salt!), she just gave up.
This brought to mind something I’ve been wanting to research for a while, so welcome to my deep dive on salt!
You may be wondering why this is important information to know. Well, I think that understanding the different types of salt can give you more confidence in the kitchen. I personally have run into recipes that call for the use of Diamond Crystal salt specifically, which is a favorite among trendy home cooks and chefs. The thing is, this brand of salt is not always easy to find, and I can never remember if this is the super salty or the less salty salt, so I have a hard time figuring out how much to substitute of whatever-I-have-on-hand salt. So I think having an understanding of the various types of salt available and their properties can be very helpful.
The Salt Research
I started my research journey with Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat (she’s also got a charming show on Netflix that goes into each of the four elements she covers in her cookbook). In her chapter on salt, she explains that salt crystals are produced by evaporating water from saltwater brine, and that the pace of evaporation determines the shape and size of the salt crystals, which in turn determines how salty the salt is. She writes that because of this, it makes sense to measure salt by weight rather than by volume, because a “tablespoon of fine salt will pack more tightly, and can be two or three times ‘saltier’ than a tablespoon of coarser salt”. Here’s her breakdown of some different types of salt:
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