Salted_ A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes - Mark Bitterman [89]
My first meal with this salt was bourbon-glazed venison on a plate dotted casually around its rim with molten-hot jalapeño pepper and little volcanoes of takesumi bamboo salt piled at the side. Never have color, flavor, and texture been so implausibly and perfectly married. This salt would do well by any barbecued meat or grilled fish, or, at the other end of the food spectrum, sushi or stir-fried vegetables. I can even attest to the merits of takesumi bamboo pinched into a cup of coffee. It bridges extremes, from daunting meats to ingratiating fruits, though at the same time it can be too subtle for the hordes of foods in between.
This salt is made by packing salt into the hollows of bamboo and incinerating the stalks for three days and three nights in a charcoal kiln tended constantly by artisans. Then the stalks are split and the carbon-infused salt is scraped out.
Takesumi bamboo salt is believed to help rid the body and spirit of low energy kegarechi—from which only stultification and suffering can flow—and supply us with the high energy of iyashirochi—making us more prosperous and happier, and ensuring that our chickens lay more eggs. Better than a toaster, takesumi bamboo would be a great wedding gift, suggesting, as it does, the fleeting nature of our quest to understand and appreciate everything around us.
INDUSTRIAL SALTS
Kosher Salt
ALTERNATE NAME(S): koshering salt MAKER(S): various TYPE: industrial CRYSTAL: dandruff; scales hammered from galvanized siding COLOR: white plastic cup FLAVOR: metal; hot extract of bleach-white paper towel; aerosol fumes MOISTURE: none ORIGIN: no specific origin SUBSTITUTE(S): For cooking, any dry traditional salt such as Trapani, where dry salt is required; otherwise, any moist sel gris. For finishing, any flake salt or fleur de sel. BEST WITH: marsupial roadkill
One fine day many years ago, an emperor who cared for nothing but his own appearance was duped into ordering a set of the most beautiful robes woven in the most beautiful colors with the most elaborate patterns, that gave the power of invisibility to anyone who was unfit for his post, or just plain stupid.
Kosher salt is used in many professional kitchens because it is easy to grasp with the fingers, easy to scatter into food, quick to dissolve, convenient to purchase, and very, very cheap. The modicum of texture it offers compared to free-flowing iodized salt leads some to believe that it’s somehow more natural. The combination of professional endorsement and perceived naturalness has led to the widespread acceptance of kosher salt as “gourmet.” But everyone saying it does not make it so.
Kosher salt is a processed food, with all mineral and moisture qualities intrinsic to real salt stripped away, and with a crystal structure fabricated by automated processes. The flavor is antiseptic, like the bright fluorescence of a laboratory on a spaceship drifting aimlessly away from earth. The texture crackles and bounces on your tongue like an undead pet, a battery-operated puppy with no hair, trying to comfort you with its soulless antics. When we cook with kosher salt we sanctify the artificial, we embrace emptiness, we become unfit for our posts—a nakedness far worse than embarrassment.
When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong—or absolutely right —Albert Guinon
SHOULD YOUR SALT BE KOSHER?
Koshering salt originates in the laws of Torah, which forbid the ingestion of animal blood. This requirement means that observing Jews must prepare their meat with a salt that draws out available fluids. Coarser, drier salts with more porosity are more effective at this. Industrial kosher salts that are manufactured specifically with these absorptive properties in mind are called kosher salt, but koshering traditionally relied on natural evaporative or rock salts to do this job.
Each crystal of industrial kosher salt is composed of many cubes stuck together to create a very porous surface. The salt is generally 99.9 percent or higher refined sodium chloride, with all the natural