Gourmet Salt Firms Search for the Star Ingredient: Quality
By Jorge Gonzalez-Garcia
A map showing the far-flung places where gourmet salt is harvested looks like a screen shot from an Indiana Jones movie. Sale marino, Sicilian sea salt, comes from salt ponds off the coast of the Italian island. Kala namak, Indian black salt, is mined in the countries that border the Himalayan mountains. The Maldon salt beloved by gourmet chefs comes from the Essex coast of England.
Specialty salt shows up in an array of colors, from the soft gray of sel gris from the marshes of France, to the pinkish red of alaea from the islands of Hawaii. The color comes from minerals in the marshes, sea ponds and mountains where it’s harvested and from ingredients added in processing.
For Laura Andersland, Founder of Salty Wahine Gourmet Hawaiian Sea Salts, specialty salt starts with the harvesting method used by her trusted supplier, and the quality of all the natural ingredients. Her small family firm is based on the island of Kauai and employs nine workers. “We use pure sea salt from ocean water pumped up from a depth of 2,000 feet,” she says. “It’s pure and is this beautiful white color. Then we add natural seasonings like garlic and pepper, or fruit like guava.” The guava, garlic and pepper added to the salt give it a distinctive reddish color and tropical island flavor that provides the theme she uses as a marketing message to distinguish her island seasonings from larger mainland competitors. “
Salt that is perfect and attractive starts with certified suppliers dedicated to providing the quality we need,” says Naomi Novotny, President of SaltWorks, Inc. Her firm is based near Seattle and has more than 70 employees. Salt arriving at her plant comes in as food grade, is regulated by the FDA, and subject to random inspections.
Novotny points out that gourmet buyers want salt that’s a hundred percent natural, and they want it to look perfect. “Those two things are not the same,” she says. “Our process has lots of steps, including sifting, aspiration and optical color sorting.” A lot of work, but Novotny believes that’s what it takes to produce the pristine salt her buyers want.
Novotny says that knowledgeable cooks and demanding chefs can taste the difference. “I can definitely tell the difference between table salt and what we make,” Novotny says. “Not everybody can, but I’ve been doing this for a while. For example, our sea salt has a taste that is more nuanced and well-rounded.”
Andersland agrees, comparing the taste difference to the difference between fresh and frozen. “You can do a side by side comparison and see that people can definitely taste the difference. Their eyes light up. There’s a certain texture and a burst of flavor.”
