Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [79]
The Cyclops ate fat rams by the handful for snacks, gobbled up men whole and screaming, armor and all. He was purported to have thrown boulders the size of chariots hundreds of yards out to sea in blind fury against nobody. I know what salt Cyclops preferred.
Moistureless, rock-hard, symmetrical as camphor pellets, Jurassic salt crystals lean into your mouth like a bear scratching its haunches on a tree—and with the same disconcerting tendency for unwanted friendliness, the flavor taking on a mildness on the back of the tongue and refusing to leave. Though balanced, with only a hint of bitterness, its amiability cannot escape a generally flat, heavy affect on the palate.
Jurassic salt is an unrefined mined salt, and as such has all the trace minerals that occur naturally in salt deposits. This deposit has sat for millions of years deep under the earth, where it has been heated and compressed into crystals of solid rock, and is utterly free of external contamination—at least until it is blasted from the mountain and hauled away in heavy trucks. To make rock this hard edible, it must be ground with industrial stone grinders. Regardless of how finely it is ground (grinds range from aquarium-gravel coarse to beach-sand fine), the rockiness remains, so Jurassic salt crystals are primarily good for cooking when dissolving salt into food is intended.
Jurassic salt is a rock salt that enjoys considerable popularity, particularly among the health-conscious who seek the advantages of an unrefined salt over industrially harvested and refined sea salt. But Jurassic salt is not exactly “artisan salt.” For a large order of road salt from a major customer, like the state of Colorado, sixty rail cars of road salt will rumble out from the salt mine, each car carrying a hundred tons of salt. Nonetheless, the salt may be a good fit for some people: relatively devoid of industrial contamination, it is unrefined, has a flavor that is decent enough, and is dang interesting to look at.
Kala Namak
ALTERNATE NAME(S): black salt; Indian black salt; sanchal MAKER(S): various TYPE: rock CRYSTAL: fine powder to large rocks COLOR: oxblood FLAVOR: volcano; egg; dragon breath MOISTURE: none ORIGINS: India; Pakistan SUBSTITUTE(S): Korean bamboo salt BEST WITH: chaats; popcorn; fruit salad
O Ganesha, Lord of Beginnings, Remover of Obstacles, deva of the intellect and of wisdom. We beseech you: what food is also a medicine, curing ills even as it brings umami to the aqueous cucumber, imparts mouthwatering heartiness to popcorn, requites the vegans’ hankering for oöspheric savoriness on their tofu, and makes fruit salads levitate? What whitens our teeth as it freshens our breath? And, o Ganesha, what is black and white and red all over?
In rock form, kala namak is dark purple bordering on black. Ground up fine and seen up close, it is pink bordering on white. But it is pink leaning toward red when sprinkled on food.
Kala namak is ancient, sung of in ancient Vedic hymns, and identified by Maharishi Charak, the 300 BCE father of ayurvedic medicine. Ayurvedic healers claim that kala namak possesses several therapeutic qualities, and they use it to pacify the bowels. As a digestive remedy, a fresh piece of ginger is soaked in lime juice spiced with kala namak, which is purported to induce salivation and digestive enzyme production. Kala namak is also claimed to aid in both appetite loss and obesity. The salt is used in medicinal formulas for combating hysteria. In combination with a number of herbs, it can be crushed into a powder believed to be good for dental hygiene. A common dentifrice includes kala namak mixed with alum or white oak bark powder, black pepper powder, turmeric and a dash of camphor or clove oil.
Although relatively uncommon in the West, kala namak is widely used in Indian cuisine, particularly in the north.