A Tasting Tour of Salts Around the World

Food critic Mimi Sheraton samples the different kinds of the world's most ancient and essential ingredient

  • By Mimi Sheraton
  • Photographs by Ivan Kashinsky and Karla Gachet
  • Smithsonian magazine, June 2012, Subscribe
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worlds largest salt flats
In southwest Bolivia, the world’s largest salt flats sit atop a vast pool of brine on the Salar de Uyuni. (Ivan Kashinsky and Karla Gachet)

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Miners from the village of Colchani

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Whenever I handle salt—to season food, pickle cucumbers, cure fish, scrub cutting boards, polish copper pots or thaw ice on my front steps—I experience a split-second cinematic flashback to a few salt sources I have visited. Each has astonished me with its grandeur and the human labor it entails. The scariest experience occurred some 30 years ago when I rode an elevator down into the salt mines on Avery Island in Louisiana, home of the fiery Tabasco empire and also of an enormous, ancient salt dome. Having donned helmet, gogglesand toe guards over shoes, and signed a waiver saying no one would be blamed for my death, I was driven in a Jeep through alleys that linked cavelike rooms carved of mined earth salt, all in a dismal gray haze that suggested a gothic winter afternoon.

Far more cheery were the sparkling white salt flats laid out along the Mediterranean coast of Trapani in Sicily. Under the blazing sun, seawater evaporated, leaving the formed salt crystals to be raked off from the long, rectangular beds that resembled giant skating rinks of frozen milk.

In Israel, I soaked in salt, bobbing buoyant as a cork in the Dead Sea. Valued for its curative minerals, this salt, as bath crystals, is said to soak aches and pains away. That dense water is so salt-saturated that nothing lives in it very long, and thereby lies a key to the process by which salt acts as a preservative: it draws moisture out of living things, bacteria included, killing them so they cannot spoil the food.

However impressive, none of these venues match Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest, starkest salt flats (a scene I have yet to experience). The photographs here only hint at the drama of the horizon-to-horizon salt-encrusted landscape of hills, drifts and fields that is considered one of the planet’s purest and least polluted. The salt is fine-grained, with an almost floury softness. The salar covers some 4,086 square miles atop a virtual ocean of brine that contains between 50 and 70 percent of the world’s lithium. This unending expanse reflects the sky, taking on a veil of blue. Of the ten billion tons of salt in this salar, 25,000 tons are harvested annually, providing arduous work and intermittent play for adults and children in nearby villages such as Colchani. After school, children earn meager cash by raking the salt into one-kilogram bags, $5 a day being the fee for harvesting 2,500 kilograms.

In New York, perhaps the biggest surprise—and disappointment—was that despite my search through at least a dozen upscale food shops, not one had the Bolivian salt, this despite its uniquely fine table-salt grain and the reputation of the site. I ordered it from La Paz. (Learn how to get this and other salts at Smithsonian.com/salt) When it arrived it was exceedingly pleasant to the touch, and flowed like gossamer through my fingers. Its intense, deep-sea salty flavor finished with only a slight flush of bitterness on the palate.

So essential is salt as flavor enhancer, preservative, life sustainer and purifier that it has been celebrated in myth, superstition and religion as far back as ancient times and probably before, a story intriguingly documented by Mark Kurlansky in his history Salt: A World History. Despite its many varied uses and associations, salt—sodium chloride (NaCl)—is most valued by food lovers for the lively interest it adds to everything we eat, cakes and desserts included, whether presented in disposable paper packets or in a gold, enamel and jeweled vessel such as the 16th-century Benvenuto Cellini saltcellar in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Increasingly in the high-fashion food world, the flavor of salt itself is getting attention, by way of cheese-and-wine-type tastings of salts from various parts of the world. The salts differ in crystal forms and subtle overtones of minerals, bitterness, saltiness and sharpness. Colors—sea-foam green, mauve, pink, red, brown and black—have a special cachet (although Kurlansky states that whiteness has been the traditional prize, and colors really are due to “dirt” that has not been removed). Such tastings were introduced by Thomas Keller about 15 years ago as part of the degustation at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and continue there, as well as at his New York restaurant, Per Se, where the staff recently staged such a comparison for me.

That complemented an even larger sampling at home, for a total of 13: the sparkling powder from the Bolivian salar; Himalayan mineral salt; gray salt—sel gris—from Brittany; English Maldon; charcoal-black and brick-red salts from Hawaii; and samples from Trapani, Cyprus and California, Jurassic salt from Utah, and the celebrated fleur de sel—flower of salt—from Ibiza in Spain and the Camargue and Brittany in France. The last is said to be harvested by gatherers—paludiers—who hand-rake at sunset, for a light, airy salt of exceedingly delicate flavor and, like most sea salts, with some 80 minerals intact.

Tasting salt with food proved less revealing than trying it alone, which could be palate numbing. I asked for advice from my guru on such subjects, Linda M. Bartoshuk, a sensory science professor at the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste. She advised that between each tasting, I rinse my mouth with body-temperature water and wait a minute or two. I did repeated tastings over a few weeks, always coming to the same conclusions. All of these salts are expensive and delicate and are meant for finishing dishes, not cooking. For that, professional chefs favor unadulterated, kosher coarse salt.


Whenever I handle salt—to season food, pickle cucumbers, cure fish, scrub cutting boards, polish copper pots or thaw ice on my front steps—I experience a split-second cinematic flashback to a few salt sources I have visited. Each has astonished me with its grandeur and the human labor it entails. The scariest experience occurred some 30 years ago when I rode an elevator down into the salt mines on Avery Island in Louisiana, home of the fiery Tabasco empire and also of an enormous, ancient salt dome. Having donned helmet, gogglesand toe guards over shoes, and signed a waiver saying no one would be blamed for my death, I was driven in a Jeep through alleys that linked cavelike rooms carved of mined earth salt, all in a dismal gray haze that suggested a gothic winter afternoon.

Far more cheery were the sparkling white salt flats laid out along the Mediterranean coast of Trapani in Sicily. Under the blazing sun, seawater evaporated, leaving the formed salt crystals to be raked off from the long, rectangular beds that resembled giant skating rinks of frozen milk.

In Israel, I soaked in salt, bobbing buoyant as a cork in the Dead Sea. Valued for its curative minerals, this salt, as bath crystals, is said to soak aches and pains away. That dense water is so salt-saturated that nothing lives in it very long, and thereby lies a key to the process by which salt acts as a preservative: it draws moisture out of living things, bacteria included, killing them so they cannot spoil the food.

However impressive, none of these venues match Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest, starkest salt flats (a scene I have yet to experience). The photographs here only hint at the drama of the horizon-to-horizon salt-encrusted landscape of hills, drifts and fields that is considered one of the planet’s purest and least polluted. The salt is fine-grained, with an almost floury softness. The salar covers some 4,086 square miles atop a virtual ocean of brine that contains between 50 and 70 percent of the world’s lithium. This unending expanse reflects the sky, taking on a veil of blue. Of the ten billion tons of salt in this salar, 25,000 tons are harvested annually, providing arduous work and intermittent play for adults and children in nearby villages such as Colchani. After school, children earn meager cash by raking the salt into one-kilogram bags, $5 a day being the fee for harvesting 2,500 kilograms.

In New York, perhaps the biggest surprise—and disappointment—was that despite my search through at least a dozen upscale food shops, not one had the Bolivian salt, this despite its uniquely fine table-salt grain and the reputation of the site. I ordered it from La Paz. (Learn how to get this and other salts at Smithsonian.com/salt) When it arrived it was exceedingly pleasant to the touch, and flowed like gossamer through my fingers. Its intense, deep-sea salty flavor finished with only a slight flush of bitterness on the palate.

So essential is salt as flavor enhancer, preservative, life sustainer and purifier that it has been celebrated in myth, superstition and religion as far back as ancient times and probably before, a story intriguingly documented by Mark Kurlansky in his history Salt: A World History. Despite its many varied uses and associations, salt—sodium chloride (NaCl)—is most valued by food lovers for the lively interest it adds to everything we eat, cakes and desserts included, whether presented in disposable paper packets or in a gold, enamel and jeweled vessel such as the 16th-century Benvenuto Cellini saltcellar in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Increasingly in the high-fashion food world, the flavor of salt itself is getting attention, by way of cheese-and-wine-type tastings of salts from various parts of the world. The salts differ in crystal forms and subtle overtones of minerals, bitterness, saltiness and sharpness. Colors—sea-foam green, mauve, pink, red, brown and black—have a special cachet (although Kurlansky states that whiteness has been the traditional prize, and colors really are due to “dirt” that has not been removed). Such tastings were introduced by Thomas Keller about 15 years ago as part of the degustation at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and continue there, as well as at his New York restaurant, Per Se, where the staff recently staged such a comparison for me.

That complemented an even larger sampling at home, for a total of 13: the sparkling powder from the Bolivian salar; Himalayan mineral salt; gray salt—sel gris—from Brittany; English Maldon; charcoal-black and brick-red salts from Hawaii; and samples from Trapani, Cyprus and California, Jurassic salt from Utah, and the celebrated fleur de sel—flower of salt—from Ibiza in Spain and the Camargue and Brittany in France. The last is said to be harvested by gatherers—paludiers—who hand-rake at sunset, for a light, airy salt of exceedingly delicate flavor and, like most sea salts, with some 80 minerals intact.

Tasting salt with food proved less revealing than trying it alone, which could be palate numbing. I asked for advice from my guru on such subjects, Linda M. Bartoshuk, a sensory science professor at the University of Florida’s Center for Smell and Taste. She advised that between each tasting, I rinse my mouth with body-temperature water and wait a minute or two. I did repeated tastings over a few weeks, always coming to the same conclusions. All of these salts are expensive and delicate and are meant for finishing dishes, not cooking. For that, professional chefs favor unadulterated, kosher coarse salt.

The Himalayan mineral salt harvested from mountain mines was my hands-down favorite, partly for its silvery pink glow, which suggested crushed rose quartz, combined with its mild, fresh salinity.

Color aside, the fleur de sel from Brittany and the Camargue would vie for first place, with its virtually identical, beautifully sparkling, diamond white grains and quintessential sea breeze flavor, with only the least tang of bitterness. The grains were so delicate they are perhaps wasted on the lustiest foods, such as roasted meats and poultry, and more suitable to salads and fish. Fleur de sel from Ibiza was a bit more intensely salty and softer in texture but still quite pleasant.

Sel gris, from Brittany, was almost as delicate as the fleur de sel, but a bit softer in texture. It had just enough mineral underpinnings to make it a more effective seasoning for meats, as it is used by Eli Kaimeh, the chef at Per Se.

Maldon salt, though beautifully glittering and glassy, had an overpowering bitterness, but the crunchy texture of its large flakes makes it a lovely contrast to paper-thin slices of raw scallops and tuna.

Hawaii’s black and vermilion salts were salty all right, but without special distinction other than their colors.The salts from California and Utah were less distinguished than the others and had slightly more mineral accents but were still preferable to processed table salt.

Trapani salt was especially snowy and fine-grained and would be very good sprinkled on tomatoes or raw cucumbers, as would the larger, slightly duller flakes from Cyprus.

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?”—Matthew 5:13

Luckily, we have yet to face that dilemma. But consider that, according to research done by Linda Bartoshuk and others, each of us perceives saltiness in different measure. What is salty for me, may not be for you. That makes the common admonition in recipes “Salt, to taste” a precarious phrase, indeed. It’s also why salt should always be at the table, despite chefs who think otherwise in their attempt to wrest control from diners.

Ivan Kashinsky and Karla Gachet produced Historias Minimas, a book on traveling from the Equator to Tierra del Fuego.


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Comments (21)

I enjoyed the article on salt in the June 2012 edition of the Smithsonian Magazine. In 1963 or so I happened to be in Bolivia, in the market of a place called Vinto, in the Cochabamba valley. As such markets generally are, it was bustling with people selling produce, grains, food, etc. from stands and displays. Both Spanish and Quechua were spoken all around. Then, amongst the crowd I noticed a group of some 10 men, clearly indigenous, dressed in homespun and obviously homemade clothing herding around 30 to 40 llamas. Each of the llamas carried a pack on its back. I asked who might these men be. I was told they were from the Altiplano - the high plain. They brought salt from the Salar de Uyuni, cut in blocks. The llamas carried the salt. The men had come to the valley to trade the salt for corn, which won't grow on the cold high plain. The barter would be in equal weight measures, salt for corn. In this way the llamas, which have a limited load capacity, would carry back the same weight they brought. It is difficult to say how many centuries this arrangement had been going on. The people in the market said "always." A medium size truck would have carried all the salt those llamas carried, and in much, much less time, as the Salar de Uyuni is a good distance from the Cochabamba valley. In about 1985 I was in Bolivia again. I was driving with a group across the Altiplano from Oruro to Potosí and as we approached the Uyuni salt flats I saw a group of men driving about a dozen llamas along the road, each llama carrying a pack. Like the men I saw so many years before, these men were wearing homespun woolens, along with some pieces of ready made clothes. One had on an old miner's helmet instead of the traditional woolen cap with ear flaps. I can only assume they were headed to the Cochabamba valley to trade their salt for corn, as they were headed that way. Always is a long time.

Posted by Jack Webb on August 9,2012 | 05:29 PM

The color of salt is mentioned as being one of many elements that create a cachet, after which Mark Kurlansky is quoted by one word "Dirt" in regards to how that color comes about. This is an entirely inacurate use of his "quotation" as it leads any reader to believe that those expensive black Hawaiian salts or pink Himalayan salts are merely dirty. The correct term to describe the element(s) that colors (NaCl) naturally is Impurity. Impurity to the crystal structure and chemical makeup is what turns the pure white salts into the varied colors. Not Dirt as the article is written to convey. Either the "quote" shouldn't have been incorporated into the otherwise good article, or another source should have been consulted to provide a less unwholesome origin of salt color. After all, no one wants to eat Dirt.

Posted by Benjamin T. Stahl on August 7,2012 | 10:54 PM

Concerning "Salt of the Earth" (June, 2012 issue), Matthew 5:13 describes salt used as a catalyst for burning dung (the commonly available fuel) in an "earth-oven," so typical in the Middle East and elsewhere on the planet. See the details in my article "Salt of the Earthen Oven Revisited."

Posted by Dr John J Pilch on July 16,2012 | 03:24 PM

Great, interesting article. I would also like to know where/how these salts can be purchased.

Posted by Andy Farkas on July 12,2012 | 01:51 PM

Hi. I know where buy the Uyuni Salt in US. Actually I post my comment with some address before but the Smithsonian didn't post it. However search my name in the google easy you will find me and contact to me. Uyuni Salt is the best!!!

Posted by Pastor R. Payllo on July 4,2012 | 01:01 PM

I really enjoy that Salt artical. Didn't know so many were out there. I just buy it at the store and use it here in Deltona Fl. but I do have a question. It says 13 kinds were tried.. i did my best reading it and even numbered the mentioned kinds and came up with 11 Yes 11 only . I tried my best to find 13 .. Am I missing 2 some where? . I like to contac that buying it Smithsonian.com/salt..Also disappointed when the link failed. thanks Al

Posted by Al Kirt on June 25,2012 | 01:07 PM

I enjoyed the simplicity of this article. Also, I wonder why the author did not make mention of the famous underground salt mines in Salzburg (Salz = salts)? That is another fascinating salt source. I buy salts from all around the world and mix my own bath salts. They are divine. And I have tried most of the salts at my table as mentioned by Pamela Brousseau below, but I always return to basic Iodized Sea Salt or Iodized Table Salt for every day use. I grew being told to use iodized salt to prevent goiters and I think after 50 some years my palette is accustomed to it.

Posted by Jennifer Rho on June 21,2012 | 03:06 AM

Same as above, the article promissed to tell how to obtain the Bolivian salt by going to smithsionian.com/salt...

Posted by Allan Mosher on June 17,2012 | 07:41 PM

The introduction of iodized salt has been a very important public health measure, eliminating goiter and cretinism. That should be your go-to salt. (Kosher salt isn't iodized.) And how can sea salt be a good thing, given all the pollution in the ocean? I don't go out of my way to avoid it, but I wouldn't buy it.

Posted by Jane Shevtsov on June 9,2012 | 08:04 PM

Was surprised and interesred in the article. Thanks to lou for mentioning the websites for the salt of choice.

Posted by Sandra Price on June 8,2012 | 11:57 AM

I'm wondering what was unlawful, threatening, defamatory, etc. about my comment 2 days ago about the health consequences of excessive dietary salt?

Posted by Charles Stegman M.D. on June 5,2012 | 11:10 PM

There's a great salt store in NYC - the Meadow - and their site has extensive information about various salts and the best foods to serve them with. http://www.atthemeadow.com/shop/ My favorite salt flats are in Bonaire. Those Bolivian salt flats make for some amazing photography.

Posted by Eva on June 5,2012 | 02:24 PM

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0907355 Sorry to be a party pooper but I am a family physician and devote some of every working day to counseling patients to limit their salt intake to prevent stroke and heart disease. I have referenced an article at the link cited above in the New England Journal of Medicine from Feb. 2010. It documents, among other things, that reducing salt intake in America by three grams per day per person would have a greater public health impact than if everyone quit smoking. To be responsible, your article should have acknowledged that limiting dietary salt is extremely important for many people with high blood pressure, heart failure, kidney disease, etc. Moreover, your suggestion that the qualities of table salt may vary from one source to another is ridiculous. Table salt is a compound: sodium chloride. Any variation from that formula renders it not to be table salt. Anyone who spends more money to buy a "gourmet" salt is being duped.

Posted by Charles Stegman M.D. on June 3,2012 | 08:01 PM

I echo the same disappointment. How do I find La Paz salt?

Posted by Katherine Falcone on June 3,2012 | 11:03 AM

How totally disappointing. I'd expected a list of links to purchase a number of different salt. No such links provided. How totally disappointing. As a salt lover, I'd expected much more .... but alas, nothing. Any chance of getting the information we need to order the the salts? Ed Wolfe

Posted by Ed Wolfe on May 30,2012 | 08:23 PM

You can purchase most if not all of the sea salts mentioned in this article on line from a variety of websites. Just type in the variety of sea salt that you are looking for and a lot of options will appear. Hawaii Kai is a good one for Hawaiian sea salt, they have the whole story on a 3 minute video regarding how the salt is made in Molokai Hawaii. Most of the websites offer their salts for sale in very small quantity to very large.

Posted by loui on May 30,2012 | 02:58 PM

This wonderful article made me want to purchase the Bolivian Uyuni Salt Flats salt. Unfortunately, I was also unable to get the link mentioned in the article to "Learn how to get this and other salts."

Posted by Linda Randall on May 30,2012 | 10:13 AM

There were a few statements made in this article that I wanted to comment on as I am sort of a sea salt snob... Kosher sea salt is not necessarily all-natural just because it is Kosher. And, it is not necessarily the most natural form of sea salt, it is possible that it has been super heated and bleached. And may also not have the flavor complexity that other more natural sea salts offer because it may have very little if any, mineral and electrolyte component left in it after processing. (Isn't it 99.9% sodium?). And this statement: (although Kurlansky states that whiteness has been the traditional prize, and colors really are due to “dirt” that has not been removed. This statement could is not true for all salts with color; Red Hawaiian sea salt is red because of the Red Alaea clay which is added after the salt is made. Black Hawaiian sea salt is black because of the Activated charcoal added after the salt is made. Green Hawaiian sea salt is foam green because of the bamboo leaf extract added after the salt is made. And finally, sea salt is wonderful on grilled, roasted, broiled or tossed on a variety of your favorite foods as a finishing salt. There are differences between the salt, and my suggestion is to do your tastings with food. And, BBQ'd Corn with black sea salt is my summer favorite.

Posted by Pamela Brousseau on May 29,2012 | 07:02 PM

Also disappointed when the link failed. Assumed (an heroic assumption) that by this time the link would have been corrected.

Posted by Paul Slater on May 25,2012 | 09:32 PM

Great article. Where can we get some?

Posted by Al on May 24,2012 | 11:28 PM

Interesting article, made me want to purchase some salt! I was a bit disappointed when the link to smithsonian.com/salt did not tell me how to get the salts that the article mentioned. I did like the interview, however.

Posted by Mark Powers on May 21,2012 | 04:57 PM



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