GIFT IDEA: Pink salt combined with Aleppo chili pepper and bouquet-garni herbs (a French blend of dried basil, marjoram, and rosemary)

Let’s talk abut SALT.

Nope, not that Angelina Jolie movie.

I’m talking the condiment that we all require in our food.

What about salt you say?

Let’s put it this way, I have a current curiousity with exotic salts.

I mean, what is the real difference anyway apart from place of origin and colour.

Texture – Coares, medium coarse, very coarse  or fine. (*Inserts Maitre’d* Reminds of a steak order much? Food sometimes gets a wee bit complicated with the preferences we can choose from nowadays..)

Processed or unrefined. Organic? Mineral content?

Salt—that grainy stuff you use to season everything from meat to veggies—is actually sodium chloride, a unique food and essential nutrient that comes from the sea, or remnants of it.

Colored salt: Natural colored salt is most often a coarse, large crystal good for pinching. Examples include sulfurous black salt from India and pink salt from the foothills of the Himalayas and the Murray River area of Australia. (Note: keep in mind that colored salt’s appeal is primarily an aesthetic one.)

 

 – wholefoodsmarket.com; Guide to Salt

 

Not just salt, but Sea Salt versus Pink Salt.

All salts contain about the same amounts of sodium and chloride by weight. The additional trace minerals and elements found in unrefined sea salts and unrefined mined salts contribute to the flavor and color of the salts but do not contribute significantly to their nutritional value.

Sure, my tastes towards food is gradually veering towards a sort of sophistication. More like another mean of travelling the culinary way. The language of food and the way we want to live.

I’m currently using  Brittany  Organic Sea Salt, coarse in texture. And if you are wondering, the saltiness is very different from processed table salt. Flavourful and a tad sweet, and alot lot less saltier (Ironic I know).

Fleur de sel: A hand-harvested sea salt that comes from the coast of west-central France. It may be a bit expensive, but keep some around for its wonderful flavor and moist, crunchy texture.

 

Pink salt, according to wikipedia may refer to:

• Any salt that is pink in color
• Himalayan salt, a form of salt used in cooking or in bath products
• Alaea salt, an unrefined Hawiian sea salt used in cooking or in rituals
• Prague Powder#1, a curing salt containing sodium nitrite and sodium chloride

 

Pink salt combined with Aleppo chili pepper and bouquet-garni herbs (a French blend of dried basil, marjoram, and rosemary). The mixture was presented in muslin pouches.

 

I had long been fascinated by the idea above of using exotic Pink salt as a favour. And the word Pink has remained in my thoughts until lately, buried.

I like the sweetness of the element Pink, useful for cooking or even to remind guests to take that moment to inhale. whiffs of the sea and spice around you. What a reminder about living. Oh so pretty too. (I had loved the pretty colours of peppercorns in McCormick’s Peppercorn Melange)

I enjoyed Edible Stories by Mark Kurlansky. Moments of amusement with his chapter on the ‘Hotpot’. And the ending chapter’Magaret’ with the mysterious polynesian man and his ‘refridgerator’. Quite a shock really. And the Red Hawiian sea salt that seem to travel through the hands of the novel’s various characters.

Well that’s the end isn’t it?

No! I just came across Himalayan sea salt today. Which probably finally ends my fascination with salt. And the location of Pink Salt in Singapore. Himalayan Sea salt, which is PINK and contains 84 types of minerals. According to the Chinese Medicine Shop person.  

In a blog all about my musings about Salt. Suffice to say now, when you could afford a one time purchase of a more expensive exotic salt – why not? All in the hopes of better health benefits, organic yet affordable still. Bringing the world closer to your kitchen and hopefully reminds you, of the differences between more sodium and not.

I’ll save the explaination, refer to Wikipedia.

Rock salts mined in several parts of the world, including Hawaii, Utah, Bolivia, the Murray-Darling basin of Australia, Peru, and Poland are marketed as Himalayan salt or pink salt.^{[citation needed]} The color results from iron oxide

Himalayan salt is a marketing term for Halite (commonly known as rock salt) from Pakistan, which began being sold by various companies in Europe, North America, and Australia in the early 21st century. It is mined in the Khewra Salt Mines, the second largest salt mine in the world, located in Khewra, Jhelum District, Punjab, Pakistan, about 300 km from the Himalayas, about 160 kilometres from Islamabad, and 260 kilometres from Lahore, and in the foothills of the Salt Range.

 The 84 benefits apparently are:

1. Regulating the water content throughout your body.
2. Promoting a healthy pH balance in your cells, particularly your brain cells.
3. Promoting blood sugar health and helping to reduce the signs of aging.
4. Assisting in the generation of hydroelectric energy in cells in your body.
5. Absorption of food particles through your intestinal tract.
6. Supporting respiratory health.
7. Promoting sinus health.
8. Prevention of muscle cramps.
9. Promoting bone strength.
10. Regulating your sleep — it naturally promotes sleep.
11. Supporting your libido.
12. Promoting vascular health.
13. In conjunction with water it is actually essential for the regulation of your blood pressure.
    • It is the highest grade of natural salt.
    • Under an electron microscope, crystal salt has a perfect crystalline structure.
    • It is mined by hand and hand-washed.
    • Crystal salt is immune to electromagnetic fields
    • Crystal Salt contains no environmental pollutants.
    • There is no limited shelf life and no need for silica packets to prevent clumping.