Wine Cheese Salt Tasting?

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a salt tasting. That's right, a salt tasting. It was really interesting, but then again, I love when people talk food to me, especially GOOD food. The tasting took place at Zingerman's Deli. The producers from Halon Mon were in town from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysyliogogogoch, which is on the Welsh Isle of Anglesey. No really, that IS the name of the town.

The first thing that we did was talk about salt a little bit. Most of it was talking about the differences between factory produced salt such as Morton's and naturally produced salt like theirs.

Factory salt is pure NaCl with certain additives that promote dryness. The additives give factory salt a bitterer flavor. These additives also enhance salt's ability to dry out the body by preventing the body from absorbing moisture.

Sea salt on the other hand is somewhere between 90-95% NaCl. It is not pure because seawater naturally contains other elements. The two most common are magnesium and calcium, both of which are needed by the body. As the levels of the other elements vary the flavors of the salt change. Calcium provides a sweeter taste, while magnesium has a bitter flavor. An interesting fact about calcium levels is that they vary by season depending on whether the shellfish are growing. When they are growing, there is less calcium in the water because the shellfish are using it.

The ‘making’ of Halon Mon sea salt starts with the Gulf Stream current which brings clean water across the Atlantic to their little isle. They then pump the water in where it is initially filtered naturally by the sand and mussels at the ocean bottom. (Did you know that mussels can filter 9 pints of water an hour? I can’t imagine drinking 9 pints of water a day although I probably should.) After the water is pumped into the tanks, lamps heat it until it reaches the proper consistency and crystals begin to form. At this point there is a “rinser” takes about 10-15 minutes to rinse the salt in salt water to get the proper taste, size, texture and combination of elements. This is normally done with about 2 kg of salt at a time. Once it is ready it is then packaged and marked with the date and the initials of the rinser. This whole process takes 11-14 days.

Here are some of the things that we tried having both the factory salt and Halon Mon in front of us. We tried a piece of celery. Now I hate celery, mostly for the texture but I am also not a fan of the flavor or smell of celery but I was tasting the salt so I ate it. The two things that you notice by trying both types of salt in a row are the bitterness and overpowering aspect of the factory salt. After the celery, we tried a piece of melon and tomato.

They then made a couple of quick and easy dishes. The first was a type of bruschetta that simply had olive oil and their salt on some good toasted bread. Then they had a piece of bread with some soft goat cheese and dulce de leche with some salt sprinkled on top. I love that sweet and salty flavor and have been known to put sea salt on my hot fudge or caramel sundaes for a little while now. Yum!

There were also two additional ‘flavored’ sea salts that they had on hand and let us try. One was a spiced salt that contained cloves, paprika, pepper, ginger and about 5 other spices. Actually, they only put one clove in each package and I was the lucky one who got it. I didn’t get a prize though. The other was a smoked salt, which is smoked for 6 days. Either of these would be amazing on any type of meat or fish, I would imagine.

Some more interesting facts that I won’t put into paragraphs because this is already too long:

• Human blood has the same percentage of salt content as seawater.
• Sea salt that is sun dried in pools is subject to anything that will fall into the pool or on the salt. Think birds here.
• I drank A LOT of water during the tasting.
• There is a chocolate tasting coming up soon. I can’t wait.