Great chefs: Salty talk

By Anne Willan
Los Angeles Times Syndicate

BIG SUR, California (Los Angeles Times Syndicate) -- What IS all this talk about salt? I'm catching up on my reading while gazing out over the glassy, sunlit Pacific Ocean, and everywhere I seem to see salt. It used to be that salt was bad for us, said to cause heart attacks. In the kitchen, prudent cooks replaced it with lemon juice, vinegar or nasty salt substitutes -- anything which circumvented the deadly chemical sodium. Never mind that the human body cannot survive without sodium and that malnourished children will eat earth, even coal, in their craving for salt. Salt was bad for us.

Now salt, sea salt, is all the rage. And what a lot of nonsense continues to be talked and written about it. In its pure state, salt is a simple chemical compound, sodium chloride. What complicates matters is that natural trace elements are found in all of the salt that we use for cooking. These form a small proportion, perhaps 1 percent, of basic sodium chloride, but they attract much attention from diet gurus. Almost all salt comes from two sources: It is mined inland or evaporated from the sea. However, mined salt and sea salt are one and the same. Salt from a mine was once sea salt, the only difference being that water was evaporated from it long ago.

What does differ, very slightly, is the amount of magnesium, potassium and other compounds apart from the 99 percent of sodium chloride. These depend on where the salt comes from.

Mediterranean salt, for example, is chemically a little bit different from the Atlantic salt, which is air-dried in southern Brittany; or Maldon salt, which is evaporated by heating North Sea water. If you taste these salts side by side, a keen palate can detect very slight differences, hence the hype given by gourmet chefs to boutique sea salts. The reason that table salt gets such a bad rap is that it contains additives -- a maximum of 2 percent is allowed by the Food and Drug Administration -- to stop it from coagulating in storage. This adds a tinge of bitterness to the taste of sodium chloride. Again, try it on the tongue.

Kosher salt usually, but not always, is sold as larger crystals and contains fewer additives. Many cooks feel it is a more respectable alternative.

Sea salt is expensive, reflecting production methods. Regular sea salt, costing $10 a pound or more, is evaporated from sea water by sun and wind so that coarse crystals fall to the bottom of pans, where they are gathered, traditionally by using a rake. Impurities creep in from the water and the clay base of the pans, hence the drab color of the salt.

Glittering white fleur de sel, costing 10 times the price, floats on the surface of the pans and production is intermittent, depending on hot, dry, windy weather. Toward the end of a good day, a thin film appears on the surface of the water and requires immediate skimming. "A miracle," one producer calls it. Vintages vary with the weather, like wine, and some years produce nearly none.

In chilly northern climates, the sea water must be artificially heated, making salts such as the famous large, flaky crystals from Maldon in England even more expensive. Dozens of sea salts are now available from all over the world, their prices ranging up to $30 an ounce or more. Black salt, mixed with a touch of lava dust, comes from Hawaii, and pink salt from the deserts of Peru. These exotica are amusing, but personally, I think that you cannot detect the differences in cooking. Try boiling your pasta (a bland substance if ever there was one) in water flavored with sea salt, with kosher salt and with table salt. I defy you to detect the difference. Certainly any individuality is lost in rich or spicy sauces. (When measuring salt, by the way, remember that the volume varies enormously with the size of the crystals; weight is the only really reliable test of quantity.)

Only when salt is sprinkled over food at the last minute, or served with dishes such as boiled meat or grilled vegetables, are nuances of taste detectable. This is fine for savory dishes, but there is always a danger that the food ends up unevenly seasoned, some parts bland and others too salty.

The latest enthusiasm for sprinkling salt over dessert leaves me cold -- or rather, overheated with annoyance. For centuries, bakers have recognized the importance of a small dose of salt in bread and pastry (as anyone who has tasted the curious unsalted breads of Tuscany will confirm). Cakes and sweet dishes such as caramel sauce can benefit from a pinch of salt. But when I see a top pastry chef scattering clouds of salt over his delectable chocolate marquise, I must protest. The clash of sweet and salt is open warfare on the tongue. From no salt at all, the pendulum has swung too far.

Salmon in a Salt Crust

Makes 8 servings.

For this crust, the salt is mixed with whole wheat flour and bound with egg whites. Thick fillets of other fish, such as sea bass, can be substituted for salmon, which is good with a white butter sauce and leaf spinach or your favorite green vegetable.