Never in my wildest dream I thought of blogging about salt. In my opinion, salt is supposed to taste salty. Nothing special about it. But are they all salty? *duh* yes, but apparently there are certain degrees of saltiness  and depth which makes them special.  Worths blogging about.

I’m not a salt expert, but one day I  realized that the salt I’ve been using here in New Zealand aren’t salty enough – or “tasty” enough to my asian tastebuds.  On one dinner occassion I kept  sprinkling salt on my food until I met the eyes of the offended cook sitting across the table.  Whoops.  It’s not the food.  I don’t mind bland food occassionally. There’s something wrong with the salt…. By end of that week I decided to go buy the right kind of salt, the sea salt one that I always use in my cooking.

I haven’t really come across any sexy looking salt so far. Just some pretty looking white crystals of Dead Sea Salt used for scrubbing in spa treatments.  The recent findings from supermarket shelves, is an interesting looking “Himalayan Pink Salt”. Sexy name, sexy looking thing as well. Used as a currency in the Himalayans & Nepal, it’s  rich in  minerals (Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Copper, and Iron).  Iron is the one element which creates the unique pink color of the salt. By the way, I did have a bit of taste of those lovely soft pink crystals. They’re not stinging salty, but there’s a deeper “taste” to it that will certainly enhance great  flavors in cooking.

Many of the flavor differences from one salt to another is coming from the mineral deposits in the salt, the shape of the crystals and the way the salt is harvested. For example, fleur de sel comes from the top of sea-salt marshes on the northwest coast of France, while the sharper-tasting Himalayan pink salt comes from ancient seabeds in Pakistan. *article from TIME*

So in all, salt does affect the flavors and finishing of your cooking. Not just salty, but there’re certain minerals that enhance certain type of food.  Have a look here to find out about  Gourmet Salt *please be warned: some people do get carried away,  it’s almost ridiculous*