• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 774 0

’s earnest passion for truffles is evidenced by the continents upon which it deigns to live, we express our passion with our wallets. Great truffles sell for thousands of dollars a pound. In fact, few of us can afford to buy one. This is where truffle salt comes to the rescue. It is the most cost-effective way to keep truffles in your diet. A pinch of truffle salt made from French black truffles or Italian white truffles costs pennies but delivers a good measure of the aromatic impact of a freshly sliced truffle. While the human passion for truffles puts us among the smarter animals of the planet, our invention of truffle salt is as good an example as any of what sets us near the top.

Buying tip: Most of the white truffle salts I have tasted are cloying at best and horrid, acrid monstrosities at worst. An organic compound called 2,4-dithiapentane, which is added to olive oil to make virtually all truffle oil, is also used in many truffle salts. This can take an evil turn. Unless you can smell and taste before purchasing, avoid white truffle salt.

Danish Viking Smoked

ALTERNATE NAME(S): Viking salt MAKER(S): n/a TYPE: traditional; smoked CRYSTAL: fine aquarium gravel COLOR: root beer FLAVOR: leather in a campfire; bouillon cubes; fish; marmite sucked through a black hole MOISTURE: very low ORIGIN: Denmark SUBSTITUTE(S): Maine mesquite-or hickory-smoked BEST WITH: meat dishes; mashed potatoes; transformative on hard cheeses

There are two aggressive forces in this salt: aroma and texture. The aroma is of an old, warm Nordic kitchen hearth used for decades to smoke and salt-cure reindeer and salmon. The texture is odd, and unpleasant: an electrical, nine-volt-battery feeling on the tongue layered with thirty feet of smoked animal flesh. The salt contains virtually no moisture, 0.04 percent calcium, 0.10 percent sulfate, and very little magnesium, if any at all. The paucity of minerals is matched by the unimpressiveness of the crystals. They are hard, dry, and entirely dull on their own—a rare example of nature failing to exercise creativity: hailstones instead of snowflakes.

Yet Danish Viking smoked salt has its place: with hearty foods—anything really, so long as its texture is heavy and devoid of nuance (think ten-year-old Cheddar without a cracker, or Sonny without Cher).

Fumée de Sel

ALTERNATE NAME(S): barrique Chardonnay MAKER(S): n/a TYPE: fleur de sel; smoked CRYSTAL: crumbled graham cracker COLOR: weathered graham cracker FLAVOR: balsamic oak MOISTURE: low ORIGIN: France SUBSTITUTE(S): Halen Môn oak smoked; Kauai guava smoked BEST WITH: pasta with butter and crab

The French, connoisseurs of the ménage à trois, have brought together the winemaker, the cooper, and the salt maker and made music from their congress. Fumée de sel’s toasty golden grains offer a well-rounded interpretation of salt, smoke, and wine, with notes of wine vinegar, caramelized sugar, and carpentry. The salt is made by cold smoking French fleur de sel with the French oak casks used to age Chardonnay. The structure of the fleur de sel suffers from the smoking process; it takes on an awkward, lumpy graininess. If you have a moral qualm with a fleur de sel that lacks the intrinsic crystalline beauty of the species, then try to overlook the minor iconoclasms of this salt and relish it with full-bodied foods—roasted meats and seafood, pastas, potatoes, and omelets—that provide cover for its break from convention.

Halen Môn Oak Smoked

ALTERNATE NAME(S): Halen Môn gold MAKER(S): The Anglesey Sea Salt Company Ltd. TYPE: flake; smoked CRYSTAL: laminated sheets crushed into trapezoids COLOR: photographs of candlelight FLAVOR: warm oak; wet bark; glucose; mineral astringency MOISTURE: moderate ORIGIN: Wales SUBSTITUTE(S): Mediterranean smoked flake; Maldon smoked BEST WITH: vanilla bean ice cream; sweetbreads; ravioli

Cupping a moist mound of this salt in your hand is like holding a treasure of crystals brilliant enough to mount on a gypsy queen’s anklet and precise enough to be the mechanism of a train conductor’s Swiss pocket