Photo: seannaber/Flickr

Donna Kirk

A few years ago, I discovered cooking salts. The variety astonished me. Salt is salt, right?

Try again.

Salts the world over present different colors and textures based on the unique characteristics of the rocks and mineral deposits from which they’re mined. For example, the greyish hue of French Grey Sea Salt comes from mineral deposits in clay. Hawaiian Black Salt or Red Alaea Salt, harvested from the waters off the tiny island of Molokai, are colored by volcanic ash.

How these salts are prepared–whether in blocks, flakey, course or fine–and how they are flavored with other spices gives each salt its unique characteristics as they relate to cooking, texture, the degree of saltiness imparted, etc. Exotic Himalayan Salts from Pakistan are a case in point.

For a full sample of some of the world’s best cooking salts and what to do with them, the Salt News Blog by Mark and Jennifer Bitterman is a great resource. Yesterday PRK Tidbits featured The Perfect Pantry and one of her many recipes calling for sea salt – have a look. The historian in you may also want to check out Mark Kurlansky’s famed Salt: A World History, which offers these truisms: “Salt is the only rock that we eat” and “…salt has shaped the world from the very beginning.” Though published nearly ten years ago, Kurlansky’s book came back into focus for me thanks to a friend of mine who went to France to study salt mines and deposits along the coastal towns. I learned from him that voids left underground by salt mining can cause sink holes and ground subsidence. The idea of the earth sinking due to mining one of our most basic cooking ingredients left me curious about others.

Beyond the world of salt, there is also Jack Turner’s Spice: A History Of Temptation, an intriguing historical trail of the world’s most coveted spices, including pepper. This book delves into the socio-economic impact of spices and how early civilizations developed entire trade routes and economies centered around cooking spices. Accordingly, “[t]here was a time when grown men sat around and thought of nothing but black pepper. How to get it. How to get more. How to control the entire trade in pepper from point of origin to purchase.”

Does that resonate with you? Maybe you’re not exactly sitting around and thinking about black pepper and salts. But are you at least thinking about what seasonings are, well, worth their salt? Do share.