Courtesy of Grenadine Wild Sea Salt
Though much modern salt is produced in industrial quantities, with little concern given to finesse or flavor, this wasn’t always the case. Indeed, for centuries, salt was a distinctly local product, an expression of both terroir and technique—Hawaii’s blood-red crystals, for example, or the gray, pebbly salt of France’s western coast. A few entrepreneurs are looking to recapture that sense of place (and taste) and even turn salt from a sprinkled afterthought into an essential part of your diet. Here, our four favorite gourmet varieties from around the world.
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Grenadine Wild Sea Salt
Image Credit: Courtesy of Grenadine Wild Sea Salt Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
When two former commercial photographers from New York, Jerry Simpson and his late wife, Elizabeth Watt, retired to the island of Bequia in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, they resolved to find a new career. The purity of the water and its high mineral content—the region is dotted with active volcanoes—nudged them to experiment with salt. “As a food photographer, I always met lots of chefs, and when you asked what was their one ingredient they couldn’t do without, it was always high-end sea salt,” Simpson says. Assisted by his mechanical-engineer son, he workshopped his own pan design (now patented) with the aim of creating a lower-sodium sea salt and maximizing the amount of ultrafine fleur de sel he could extract by using only the sun—no chemicals—for evaporation. Now he offers various versions of the local salt while also working closely with the yachting community, providing onboard tastings and master classes to charter guests.
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Spicewell
Image Credit: Courtesy of Spicewell Santa Monica, Calif.
Two and a half years ago, former tech exec Raina Kumra founded her salt firm with a mission drawn from her childhood: When illness struck, her mother and grandmother opted first to reach into the spice drawer, trusting in Ayurvedic practices—whether taking turmeric to bolster circulation or a mouthful of cloves to help stave off a toothache—over pills. The goal was to create a functional condiment, incorporating health-improving nutrients while still tasting good. With the advice of Mark Hyman M.D., a veteran of functional medicine, Kumra managed to extract key ingredients from vegetables such as kale and spinach before combining them with a base of Himalayan pink salt; the blend is 30 percent lower in sodium than conventional salt. Now, Spicewell offers a range of options, including a turmeric-infused pepper and a taco seasoning naturally high in vitamins.
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Jacobsen Salt
Image Credit: Courtesy of Jacobsen Salt Portland, Ore.
It was a kayaking trip down the Oregon coast more than a decade ago that provided Ben Jacobsen with the vital first raw ingredients for his saltmaking start-up. He scooped a potful of seawater from Netarts Bay to boil it down at home, clocking that the high concentration of oysters there would act as a natural filter to make the seawater briny yet clean. He still uses water from the same spot as his key ingredient today, though it was only after two and a half years of experimentation that he finally worked out how to turn it into large, flaky crystals in the style of Maldon, his favorite brand. Jacobsen’s is still hand-sorted at its Oregon factory, where the larger grades are sifted into flake salt and the smaller into kosher. The firm has also branched out into a range of salt-based herbal seasonings, including ramen and steak, as well as raw honey sourced from Pacific Northwest smallholdings.
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Orsay Sea Salt
Image Credit: Courtesy of Orsay Sea Salt Inner Hebrides, Scotland
Scottish crabber and lobsterman Ashley Hock used to bring home jugs of seawater at the end of the day for his wife, Anna, to boil down into homemade salt. It was the resulting abundance that piqued her curiosity—on average, coastal waters in Britain will yield around 1.25 ounces of salt per gallon, but the waters near their home in the whisky-making hub of Islay are so mineral-rich they can yield more than double that amount. It’s believed this phenomenon is thanks to the fast flow of the water that abrades the rocky coast, dislodging more minerals into the ocean. Today, the couple operate their boutique shingle from the local hillside, using polytunnels and natural weather conditions to evaporate the water gently; it might take up to six weeks for only the distinctively soft, sweet salt to remain. Hock still fetches every batch of water from the same tidal rock pools, though he now carries two giant tanks on deck for the trip.
