Free What Einstein Told His Cook by Robert L. Wolke Page B

shape the crystals were in before they dissolved. That’s another reason why it’s silly to specify sea salt in any recipe that contains moisture, and what recipe doesn’t? Using it to salt the water in which vegetables or pasta are to be cooked makes even less sense.
    But are sea salts perhaps still distinguishable from one another in flavor, even though dissolved in water? In a series of controlled taste tests reportedly conducted in 2001 under the auspices of the Leatherhead Food Research Association in England, panels of tasters attempted to distinguish among a number of different salts dissolved in water. The results, as reported in Vogue magazine, were wholly inconclusive.
    One common assertion is that sea salt is saltier than shaker salt. But since they’re both about 99 percent pure sodium chloride, that can’t be true. The idea undoubtedly arose from the fact that in on-the-tongue taste tests, the flaky, irregularly shaped crystals of many sea salts dissolve instantly, giving a quicker rush of saltiness than do the small, compact, slow-dissolving little cubes of shaker salt. But again, it’s not the ocean that made that difference; it’s the shapes of the crystals.
    The notion that sea salt is saltier has led to the claim that one can use less of it in seasoning. (“Good for those watching their sodium intake,” trumpets one sea salt manufacturer.) Obviously, because sea salts generally have big, complexly shaped crystals that don’t pack down as tightly, a teaspoonful will contain less actual sodium chloride than a teaspoonful of tiny, compact shaker grains. Teaspoon for teaspoon, therefore, sea salt is actually less salty than shaker salt. Weight for weight, of course, they’re identical, because any gram of sodium chloride is precisely as salty as any other. You can’t cut down on salt by eating the same weight of salt in a different form.
    MAKING THE MOST OF IT
     
    At home in your kitchen, which coarse, complexly grained sea salt should you sprinkle on your foie gras or venison carpaccio just before serving? The ones that earn the most frequent praise from chefs are the (surprise!) French salts harvested from the coastal waters of southern Brittany at Guérande or on the île de Noirmoutier or île de Ré. You will find them in several forms. Gros sel (big salt) and sel gris (gray salt) are the heavy crystals that fall to the bottom of the salt ponds and may therefore be gray with clay or algae.
    In the battle of the sea salts, most connoisseurs agree that the champion is fleur de sel (flower of salt), the delicate crust of crystals that forms on the surface of the French ponds when the sun and wind are exactly right. Because it forms in very limited amounts and must be carefully hand-skimmed from the surface, fleur de sel commands the highest price and is (as a consequence, perhaps?) most highly regarded by leading chefs. Because of its fragile, pyramidal crystal shape, it does indeed produce a delightfully crunchy salt-burst when sprinkled on relatively dry foods just before serving or at the table.
    But cooking with it is pointless.
    YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH
     
    So many chefs and recipes specify the use of kosher salt. What’s different about it?
     
    K osher salt is misnamed; it should be called koshering salt because it is used in the koshering process, which involves blanketing raw meat or poultry with salt to purify it.
    Kosher salt may be either mined or taken from the sea; nobody seems to care. Its crystals, however, must always be coarse and irregular, so they will cling to the surface of the meat during koshering. Ordinary granulated table salt would fall right off. Besides the rabbinical supervision of its manufacture, its crystal size is the only distinction between kosher salt and other salts.
    Because of its coarseness, kosher salt is better used by the pinch, rather than by the shake. Pinching lets you see and feel exactly how much you’re using. That’s why most chefs use