Salt of the Earth

The other day I was cooked some edamame and my husband said these need Sea Salt and I said we only have Kosher and table Table Salt and he said we need Sea Salt. So this made me really want to know the difference between the salts. So today I found this:

Table Salt and Iodized Table Salt

This is the type of salt that most of us use at home and the type that we find on most restaurant tables. Our basic table salt is made by sending water into salt deposits then evaporating it – only the salt crystals will remain. The salt goes through a refining process that removes the other minerals from it. Table salt has a fine grain texture which makes it ideal for baking – it can accurately be measured. Iodine is not naturally in table salt – Morton Salt Company started adding it back in 1924 to decrease the chance of goiters. The majority of table salt is iodized in the United States these days, and, indeed, the occurrence of goiters has gone down greatly!

I learned about Goiters (inflammation of the thyroid) in my A&P class, and we do need iodine in our diet in order to not get Goiters. Very interesting.

Kosher Salt

Kosher salt is made in a similar fashion to table salt – the difference is that kosher salt is raked during the evaporation process. This type of coarse salt is generally evaporated from brine. This creates grains with a block-structure, this structure better allows the salt crystals to absorb blood (Jewish law states that you must extract blood from meat before you consume it). Kosher salt is less salty than table salt.

Sea Salt

Sea salt is harvested by evaporation, also. Sea salt is not quite as salty as table salt is. You can find both fine grain and coarse grain sea salt. Many sea salts include trace minerals like potassium, magnesium, and iodine – these minerals are naturally present, not added.

Fleur De Sel

This is a type of sea salt – to harvest fleur de sel, you must take the early crystals that start to form across the surface of salt evaporation ponds – this is generally done during the summer months, the time when the sun is strongest. Fleur de sels have a higher mineral content than basic table salt. Fleur de sels can smell like the ocean, and it tends to be grayish in color. Other types of sea salts include sel gris, esprit du sel, and pink, black, and brown sea salts from India.

Rock Salt

As its name implies, rock salt is not fine-grained. In fact, rock salt is unrefined and therefore has a grayish hue. It is sold in large crystals. This is what people use to make ice cream in traditional hand-cranked ice cream makers.

This is a really basic explanation of a few salts that I found here (what I was really looking for), but in my search I found that there are a lot of different types of salts. I thought this website was particularly comprehensive if you are looking for more.