Salts of the Earth

My husband likes to say that his favorite part of the meal is the salt. It’s a bit of a tease. What he means is that, unlike his own father, who salts liberally from a shaker before tasting his food, Maxwell enjoys nothing more than sprinkling just a few dewy flakes of fleur de sel on his food and tasting the beauty that comes through.

I enjoy the salting of the meal for the way it brings awareness to the taste buds, and I often suggest to guests that they taste the dish first and then enjoy the difference with the smallest hint of salt.

Maxwell is the one who got me started on fancy salt. One of our first dates was a dinner party at his apartment, for which he had prepared an impressive spread of couscous and lentils. Before we began eating, he presented a wide-mouthed jar with a cork plug, announcing that this salt was unbelievably good and that we must all try it.

It’s just salt, I thought to myself. How good could it be? A braver dinner guest voiced my own question, and Maxwell explained that fleur de sel is hand-raked in Brittany. It smells like the sea, it tastes like the sea. The crystals are light, and they explode on the tongue. They taste like sunshine. It’s even still wet. Look closely, he said, passing the jar around.

“How much does it cost?” one skeptic piped in.

“Seven dollars,” Maxwell said, proudly.

Is this guy for real? I tasted the dish without the salt (not bad) and then with a light sprinkle of salt, as Maxwell instructed, from a few inches above the food. He was right; the fleur de sel added something extraordinary to the food.

Two years later, on our first overseas trip together, we walked the salt flats in Trapani, Sicily. We had salty kisses that day. The salt we bought there wasn’t the best we’d had, but the visit was memorable. In the years since, we’ve always kept a jar of fleur de sel on our table, and we give it often as a house gift.

I’ve noticed that there are now dozens of specialty salts, aside from fleur de sel, available in many markets. There’s even a restaurant in our neighborhood called Salt that serves a beautiful trio of salts with their bread and butter.

What’s all the fuss about anyway? I was perfectly happy with my box of Diamond kosher salt, which I used for everything done to food before it leaves the kitchen, from salting pasta water and salad dressings to preparing meats and margarita glasses.

For the tabletop, could anything be better than our beloved fleur de sel? We were skeptical. So we gathered a few friends to put some of these upscale salts to the test against our favorite. We even included some good old-fashioned Morton table salt.

The contenders were:

• Maldon sea salt (England)

• Alaea sea salt (Hawaii).

• Big Tree Farms sea salt (Bali)

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