Saltsale

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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