Saltsale

Most of us take the salt in our shakers for granted. But there is a world of history and tradition in a pinch of salt.

Did you know that a hundred years ago salt shakers were practically non-existent?
That was before 1911, when Joy Morton began adding an anti-clumping agent to salt.
Before Morton’s ad agency thought up the little umbrella girl and the slogan "When it rains, it pours," the very idea of tiny, perfectly white, uniformly-sized salt crystals was a revolution.

But as so often happens with revolutions, now, a counter-revolution has begun.

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The name of some European spas — Bad Salzdetfurth, Bad Salzungen oder Bad Salzuflen — indicate that salt is an important part of the spa’s programme.

Visitors to those European spas and others immerse themselves in healing, briny water containing a minimum of 1.45 percent salt. The salt springs on which the spas are built are found nearly everywhere in Germany. They are especially common on the northern border of Saxony, Brandenburg, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Beyond its use in spas, salt no longer plays an economic role,” said Schmidt. But recreational enthusiasts follow the tracks of salt’s story when they travel the “Salt and Brine Wellness Route” in the Swabian Alb region northward to between the Neckar and Hohenlohe districts where there are abundant underground salt deposits.

Bathing in salt water can lift one’s well-being. Water containing 3 percent salt gives the body buoyancy, allowing the muscles to relax. The higher the salt content in the water, the greater the relaxation.

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Salt used to be so simple. Now recipes are very specific about types, grinds and flavors. Anyone who does a lot of home cooking needs a whole kitchen shelf to hold all the varieties.

Salt comes from two sources: It is either mined from the ground or taken from evaporated seawater. The most common salt is mined.

• TABLE SALT: This is what most of us fill our salt shakers with. It’s fine-grained with additives that keep it from clumping together. Some connoisseurs believe the additives affect the flavor of the salt.

• IODIZED SALT: In the olden days, it was common for people to have hypothyroidism, which is caused by lack of natural iodine in the diet. Iodine was added to salt to prevent that problem.

• KOSHER SALT: This is a coarse-grained salt that contains no additives. It is often used in Jewish cooking, especially when preparing meat. Many cooks prefer it because it is pure salt flavor. For some recipes, it may be necessary to grind it to a finer texture.

• SEA SALT: This salt is made from evaporated seawater. It comes in several crystal sizes. You might find solar sea salt, which means the water was slowly evaporated by sun exposure and the salt has been collected by hand.

• CELTIC SALT: This is solar sea salt from northern France. Connoisseurs say it has a slightly sweet flavor.

• ROCK SALT: This type is in large chunks. It sometimes has a gray look because it is not refined and it contains minerals. It is used primarily for decoration or for making hand-cranked ice cream.

• PICKLING SALT: This is very finely grained salt that has no additives. It is used for pickling because it stays clear when added to liquids.

• SEASONED SALT: This is salt combined with dried herbs and spices, such as onion or garlic.

In addition to these basic salts, there are exotic salts such as Bolivian rose, French fleur de sel, smoked salt or even Hawaiian salt.

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The heap of salt was produced in ancient evaporating ponds, or “pans,” along the coast. In a world where our relationship to the products we use is almost entirely virtual, it’s refreshing to see at least a vestige of reality, if even at boutique scale. Salt, to some extent, connects these communities to the quality of the sea nearby.

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You know the little star after “salt” on an organic product’s ingredient list? And the small print explaining it’s an “approved non-organic ingredient”? Well, that’s there because salt is a mineral and isn’t something you can farm organically. The star might disappear soon, however, as salt brands start moving into the organic market.

Well, it turns out that salt can actually be organically approved if it has been sustainably harvested and comes from a nature reserve where there’s no risk of water pollution — and if there hasn’t been anything added in the processing of the salt. And it turns out Geo Organics’ isn’t actually the first to be organically approved in Europe. The Cornish Seasalt Company also has an approved product and is in the process of applying for an organic certification.

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Most people probably think of salt as simply that white granular food seasoning found in a salt shaker on virtually every dining table.

It is that, surely, but it is far more. It is an essential element in the diet of not only humans but of animals, and even of many plants. It is one of the most effective and most widely used of all food preservatives (and used to preserve Egyptian mummies as well). Pre-civilization “salt men” represent a significant contemporary archeological research source. And the oldest as well. Its industrial, medical and other uses are almost without number. In fact, salt has great current as well as historical interest, and is even the subject of humorous cartoons, music, “art” and poetry. Sometimes, however, we need to separate the salt to get the history. And there’s a lot of history to get ( 1 2 3 4 5 ). There’s even a 2002 book by Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History.

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Besides making foods delicious, it’s believed there are more than 14,000 uses of salt, and our grandmothers were probably familiar with most of them. Many of these uses were for simple things around the home before the advent of modern chemicals and cleaners. However, many uses are still valid today and a lot cheaper than using more sophisticated products.

The most familiar use of salt undoubtedly is in the kitchen and on the dining table. Salt accents the flavor of meat, brings out individuality of vegetables, puts “oomph” into bland starches, deepens the flavor of delicate desserts and develops flavor of melons and certain other fruits. No other seasoning has yet been found that can satisfactorily take the place of salt. But there are other uses around the home, too.

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Imagine how much salt magnates would charge for the most exotic salt of all, the stuff discovered this week by NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter. From BBC News

Mars appears to be covered in salt crystals from ancient dried-up lakes, new evidence suggests.

A Nasa probe has found signs that the southern hemisphere is dusted with chloride mineral, perhaps “table salt”.

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