Imagine biting into a juicy steak, fresh off the grill, only to find it completely bland and unseasoned. Now imagine biting into that same steak with a sprinkling of slightly crunchy, briny flavor crystals coating the surface. You can suddenly taste its succulent beefiness, and all is right with the world. That feeling is brought to you by salt.
Salt is the world's miracle seasoning. It’s essential for bringing out the true flavor of all foods. Humans have been using salt for more than just resuscitating bland dishes for thousands of years. Food preservation—pickling, brining, dehydrating—relies on salt. Throughout history, the mineral has allowed mankind to pack up their snacks and take them on the road. Both food and civilization as we know it wouldn’t exist without salt.
There are dozens of types of salt and they come in various shapes, sizes, and colors, but only a few are needed for a well-stocked pantry. To learn more about how salt gets from the sea to my plate, I traveled all the way to the town of Aigues-Mortes in the South of France to visit a salt marsh the size of Paris.
The journey sea salt makes from the Mediterranean to the top of your chocolate chip cookie can take up to 16 months, according to Luc, a veteran of the salt-harvesting game who’s been working at La Baleine for over 40 years. Starting from the coastline, Luc led me inland along 60 kilometers of winding channels and basins to follow the path that the seawater travels as it becomes concentrated enough to harvest. What starts as water with a salt concentration of 30 grams per liter, transforms into a slurry with a salt concentration of 260 grams per liter in a process that takes about four months.
What's amazing is that this process is almost entirely driven by natural forces. Wind and sea currents push the water through the channels, and the sun evaporates the water as it moves.
This is nothing like the method used to make standard table salt. Instead of pulling salt from the ocean, table salt is mined by injecting fresh water into underground cavernous salt deposits. The water dissolves the salt, and the brine is vacuumed out and then boiled to evaporate the water and form salt crystals, creating the fine-textured, ultra-uniform product we know as table salt. Table salt is processed to remove any additional minerals, where as sea salt retains its natural mineral content.
Why Is Fleur de Sel So Special?
In addition to standard coarse and fine ground sea salt, the Aigues-Mortes salt marshes also produce fleur de sel, a sought-after finishing salt. Fleur de sel translates to flower of salt, which refers to the way the salt forms in a delicate layer on the surface of a salt marsh during the harvest season. If salt were a plant, fleur de sel would be the bloom at the end of the stem. It has a pyramidal, stacked structure with a slightly damp, moist texture.
Like most finishing salts, it has a higher price point than the kosher salt you would use to season a tray of veggies before roasting. If you’ve ever seen fleur de sel on a restaurant menu or cooking show, you might wonder what the heck makes it so special and expensive. It’s just salt, right? Well, yes, but also not really.
Fleur de Sel Is Harvested Once A Year
Fleur de sel needs specific weather conditions to form properly. Those conditions exist in the South of France for only six weeks, from early July to mid-August. Higher early-morning temperatures lead to the rapid evaporation of seawater from the surface of the ocean, leaving behind a crusty, delicate layer of shimmering, foamy salt. The salt is harvested from dawn until noonday, when it becomes too hot for such physical work.
It's Harvested By Workers Using Shovels
Speaking of physical labor, to maintain the integrity of the fleur de sel’s unique structure, the delicate salt is harvested by hand using shovels. The work of harvesting 960 tons of salt is distributed amongst only 12-15 harvesters per season.
All of That Wet Salt Has to Dry Somehow
Once all of the salt is harvested, it’s placed in bags and hung up to dry. It takes a full year for it to dry enough to be sold and shipped.
And that's one reason why fleur de sel is more expensive. You’re paying for nature to do the processing instead of machines. The scarcity created by this kind of seasonally dependent harvest is something we see in fine wine and olive oil. Fleur de sel is like that, but for seasoning.
Salt like this is meant to be seen and heard. The chunky grains stand out on the surface of food adding a slight crunch and a burst of salt, bringing out the food's natural flavors.
Chefs and home cooks alike can use fleur de sel as a final touch to balance the sweetness of flourless chocolate cake, bring out the umami in a slice of tomato, or add an extra layer of brininess to shrimp ceviche. A finishing salt that adds texture and interest is by far the easiest way to make your food look and taste like it was made in a three-Michelin-star kitchen.
