• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

As in any land where nature thrives in close proximity to humanity, sensations here can seem so vibrant that it’s sometimes hard to fully appreciate their subtleties, until you realize that it is all subtlety, that everything can be apprehended through the play of light on the white coral sands at the bottom of a deserted bay. Sugpo Asin, which emits the palest reflection of color (from carotene in the water from the shells of sugpo prawns), is the embodiment of this paradox. The subtlest of salts, it also radiates stark beauty.

The salt, produced by a small, family-operated business where everyone lends a hand, is exceptionally difficult to make. In addition to cleaning and maintaining the tile-lined crystallizing pans to allow for a high-quality salt, the salt makers take the utmost care with the ecology of the large holding ponds where seawater is conditioned prior to feeding the crystalizers. Most salt farms don’t bother raising sugpo prawns because of the extreme difficulty of maintaining the proper pond ecology and shepherding the shrimps’ development. The payoff is a salt with a tantalizing pale pink color, and a unique intense-sweet flavor.

The color of Sugpo Asin can range from batch to batch, from the palest pink to a warm ivory. The crystals have a wonderful lushness to them, with a beautiful, irregular structure. Poured into a moist pile on your upturned palm, the crystals fall loosely and pile up with profound loftiness.

Sugpo Asin is delicious in any dish that calls for fleur de sel. Its complex intensity makes it suitable for rich or bold foods, and for dishes where the pronounced (yet still nuanced) presence of salt is desired. Any seafood comes spectacularly alive with Sugpo Asin. It works great with lean cuts of venison, lamb, and beef (for fattier cuts, I prefer French fleur de sel for its clean minerality). For skirt steak, sliced paper-thin and fired a few seconds over hot coals, Sugpo Asin is the best salt in the world.

SEL GRIS

Grigio di Cervia

ALTERNATE NAME(S): Riserva Camillone sea salt MAKER(S): n/a TYPE: sel gris CRYSTAL: crumbled shortbread COLOR: dissipating Swarovski jonquil FLAVOR: firm yet lush roundness with a vibration of nectarine MOISTURE: moderate ORIGIN: Italy SUBSTITUTE(S): The Meadow Sel Gris BEST WITH: Parmesan-breaded veal scaloppini; chanterelle omelet; tannic dark chocolate; fresh ricotta; pasta

This salt’s color hints at the warmth to come. Amber light flickers through the crystals of grigio di Cervia as if forever illuminated by the flames of a cozy hearth fire. But the salt’s flavors come through with another sort of warmth altogether—more of a midsummer rain felt through a linen shirt than a cup of hot cocoa between chilled palms. Italians call salt from the region of Cervia sale dolce, or sweet salt. The salt makers credit this unique fruity-sweet flavor to lower than normal magnesium and potassium levels—even though sweetness is often a distinctive characteristic of some of the über-magnesium-rich salts of Japan, and magnesium, potassium, iodine, zinc, copper, manganese, and iron are all present in the salt. Chalk it up to nature’s boundless appetite for mystery.

Grigio di Cervia is coarse, with moderate moisture lending suppleness to its crunch. Apart from its faintly amber color, its astonishing sweetness, its bubbly Champagnelike body, and crisp, honeysuckle-sweet flavor, it’s tempting to compare it in stature to the French sels gris. Even though it is not gray, not French, not briny, and made from the Adriatic rather than the Atlantic, it’s a true classic among sels gris.

It is hand-harvested daily in very limited quantities—which is fine, because this salt should only be used judiciously as a finishing salt. Yet the jar of grigio di Cervia in my kitchen looks battered and grubby from near-constant handling. How do I use it? Gently worked into the Parmesan breading of a veal cutlet or sprinkled on wild mushroom bruschetta, its sweetness satisfying the latent desires for earthy flavors with a spark of