This is a post about fancy salt. And I know what you’re thinking: how very special. How highfalutin of me. My husband and I joke all the time about things or each other being “very special,” code for being just so: our dog, for refusing to eat unless we mix in leftover steak gristle or the like; ourselves, for luxuriating in the linen sheets we got as a wedding present. (All we do is sing “very special” to the tune of the Debra Laws song of the same name.) It’s gotten to the point that any declared partiality at all—a preference for one CD over another on a car trip, the simple utterance of a sentence beginning with “I’d like…”—can trigger this song.* And extolling salt that retails for $10 a box in NYC is certainly fodder for this accusation.
It’s a fact: Fancy salt, specifically Maldon Salt, IS very special. Very special indeed. It is used as a “finishing” salt, judicially sprinkled onto very special cookies and very special avocado toast. It is so expensive that, despite my profession, I couldn’t ever justify buying some.
But then I went food shopping in London (I know, privilege alert… cue Debra Laws), and found that one can buy Maldon salt for around $2 a box. I can always get behind a bargain. So I bought some. And damn it, I like it.
The aforementioned very special doggie, styled for winter in her very special coat and very special kerchief.
I swear I haven’t changed otherwise. If you are a longtime reader of this blog (not that long—it’s only been <a full year!> since the first post), you know I get a real thrill out of making a meal out of potato skins, corn cobs, and stale bread ends. Precious ingredients are fine, but what you do with what you have is much more interesting to me.
That said, if you can get your hands on some fell-off-a-truck Maldon salt, snatch it up. Its taste is cleaner and milder than both iodized and kosher salt. It’s also less salty, so it’s hard to overseason and easy to add a little hit of salinity (which is especially convenient for sweets). People tend to describe it as “crunchy” but I think of it as more “textured.” I’ve had other finishing salts that really are crunchy and remind me of having sand in your food (see first photo, which includes some gifted grey salt, which is not my favorite). Maldon is intact enough that you do get a tiny pleasant jolt of salt, but since it easily dissolves on your tongue, its flaky texture is quite lovely, not a distraction.
Another factor that might help justify buying Maldon is that it’s best used only after food is already cooked, often already on a plate. A piece of toast with unsalted butter? Yes. Corn on the cob? Sure. On a platter of lamb meatballs that you fear are a tad under-seasoned (as meatballs can easily be)? Certainly. But it would be a waste to use this in any dish where it will be dissolved or mixed in prior to you eating it. For that I use kosher salt. That’s still the salt I use 98% of the time: for seasoning food as it sautés, for raw meats, for salad dressing, for sprinkling on veggies prior to roasting. I happen to have a canister of iodized salt around too, and I use that only for salting boiling water for pasta or blanching. So three salts. That’s my set up. Some might say it’s very special, but it’s just who I am.
Cookbook photo shoots, always a hotbed of Maldon usage.
Favorite Uses for Maldon Salt
- Any toast, especially with unsalted butter or avocado
- Crostini (ricotta and honey, mashed white beans, etc.)
- Pan con tomate (a slice of crusty toasted bread, rubbed with a raw garlic clove then a halved excellent tomato, sprinkled with salt, and drizzled with olive oil)
- Eggs of any sort
- Fresh, mild cheeses like burrata and mozzarella
- Sliced tomatoes: in sandwiches, as a salad, etc.
- Cold soups (which can often use a bit more salt, since the cold deadens the seasoning)
- Corn on the cob
- Just-roasted or just-fried foods
- Sliced steaks or other grilled meats
- Individual bowls of pasta or risotto
- Mixed with pepper flakes, to drag steamed shrimp or picked crabs through
- Any sweets that benefit from a little salt: caramel sauce, butterscotch pudding, blondies, chocolate chip cookies, truffles, etc.
Do you use fancy salt, and if so, what do you use it for? Do you feel pretentious, or do you sprinkle with pride? Most importantly, is there a secret place in NYC to buy it for cheap?
* You know when someone you know very well says something slightly more specific or poetic than usual, like, “It was a surprisingly small dressing room” and you say back, “You’re a surprisingly small dressing room” and then later you say something like, “Look at that sapling, lit up by the sun.” And they automatically say back, “You’re a sapling lit up by the sun.” And then at some point everything you want to say you know will be infinitely mirrored back to you, and you can’t speak anymore? My friend Kate and I did that with that joke until we stunned ourselves into silence. When jokes become that engrained, it’s hard to stop yourself.
Postscript
I was originally going to name this post “Salt and Privilege” based on the simmering tirade I had in my head about the complications regarding my recommending expensive salt. And thus I wrote a rant about the increasing prevalence of people talking about other people’s privilege, and how below the belt and inarticulate that can be, but also how, on the other hand, people talk about their advantages with no graciousness or awareness of other people’s situations. Eventually I felt like the whole thing was a tad off-topic from Maldon salt (and truly getting into some tangled issues), and deleted it. But in this postscript, I wanted to make a few random points, because this is my blog and no one can tell me not to:
- When I see Maldon written into a recipe by a recipe developer—who I know has 4 roommates, lives in a actual slum, and makes minimum wage—I am uncomfortable. Sometimes a person does things that make no economic sense, I get that, but the seemingly acceptable idea that one should keep up with the Joneses, even if it means ignoring personal means to do so, really troubles me. I know a box of fancy salt is small potatoes, but still.
- Likewise, I once had to tell an author flat out that we could NOT call for Pink Himalayan salt exclusively throughout a cookbook. This author could afford that, but it felt irresponsible and a tad absurd to make every reader feel obliged to follow suit. It’s fine to have advantages, but it’s nice to actively avoid being exclusive.
- And lastly, a recent article from the New York Times (and later in the WSJ) regarding a study discovering a connection between happiness and hiring people to do tasks that you dislike really got my goat. (Called "Want to Be Happy? Buy More Takeout and Hire a Maid, Study Suggests".) In general, I love the unabashed intellectual pursuits of the NYT and have dismissed the elitism accusations from the last 9 months (guff from the rampant media firestorms). But the idea that this is a relevant article for New York Times readers as a whole is ridiculous. It assumes enormous economic privilege to say that “we” should let ourselves pay for help doing things that aren’t a joy. Like we all just need a push in that direction, given conveniently by the NYT, to help unburden us from the guilt we have—“we deserve it!” No. The people who can afford to hire others to do unappealing tasks are a lucky bunch, and they are not the majority. Am I overreacting?? I just think the world is in a crazy place these days—between hurricanes and earthquakes and nuclear weapons and, of course, POTUS’s endorsements/commands to “grab ‘em by the pussy”—so perhaps we all need to try even harder than usual to be thankful for what we have and sensitive to what others have, don’t have, or are going through. Woof. Opinions, anyone?
