Savor Classics: Salt

Salt -- necessary for human life yet easy to overeat -- has sparked wars and innovations alike. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren dig into the complex history and science behind this edible mineral, plus talk to expert Suzi Sheffield about how salts can provide a palate of flavors to play with in your cooking.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeart Radio. I'm
Annie Reees.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Lauren vocal Baum, and today we have a
classic episode for you about salt.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, oh, I ran out of salt the other day, Lauren.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh no, oh, that's the worst thing.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
It was not good.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
And it was one of those things where somebody had
purchased for me because they're very kind to know. I
never go to the grocery store. That's a huge thing
of salt, okay, And I think I just I flew
too close to the sun and the sun.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I've never run out wow, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
And I definitely did.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
It was a real wake up call, don't. I don't
cook nearly as often as you do. But I kind
of like fancy salts are thing that I've received as
gifts a whole bunch in my life, and so I
don't think. I'm not sure I could run out of
salt if I tried.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Listen, take it from me, don't push it, lord.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
I've definitely run out of like of like plain salt,
and like, like my roommate came in and was like,
why why are you like like stir frying with this
like black sea salt and I'm like, I don't ask
me questions like that.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
This is all that I do have fancy salts. You're right,
I do have those. It was a plain salt. I
ran out. But the situation is is rectified.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Oh good, good, good good. I'm glad. I'm glad. That's important.
Got two big things of salt, perfect perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yes. Was there any reason this one was on your
mind to bring back?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Nope? Zero percent. Uh no, I was just sort of
going through the archive and it wasn't a plant.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I love it. You know, you've got to have your rules,
you gotta have your code.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this one, this one is interesting.
We get to talk with a local salt purveyor, Susie Sheffield,
of a beautiful briny sea, and so that's a fun conversation.
We originally recorded this back in twenty eighteen, published in April,

(02:22):
so I don't know when. I don't know when. We
recorded it.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
When we were moving offices and cleaning out essentially our
old office, I found a bunch of the swag she
gave us, including like frisbees and stuff. I have so
many frisbees and I can't remember the last time I
played frisbee. But I've been thinking about it lately.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Okay, yeah, I've been. I've been pet sitting for a
very excited dog and she loves a frisbee. So if you,
I mean, you know, I want you to also play frisbee.
But like just if you need, right, if you need
to offload like one or ten or something like that,
then then let me know.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
I thought you were gonna be like if you need
a frisbee partner.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh, I mean that too, I mean, come on over, Like.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yeah, I often feel like my friends are like, let's
go outside, Annie, come on. I don't mind it. It
comes from a place of love. But noted, noted, I
do have several frisbees. So if you need one, oh,
I've got you.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah, thank you, thank you. If she choose through the
one that we have, like within the next couple days,
then I'll let you know.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Put up the emergency frisbee signal. Yeah absolutely. Okay, well
I guess we should let past Annie and Lauren take
it away.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Anni Eries and
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking about one of
those basics of culinary everything.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Everything. Yeah, salt, salts, not the movie.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
No, as you would guess watch watching listening to a
food podcast, we are not talking about the Angelina Julie
Twenten movie.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
I mean, I guess we could have.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
I have never seen it, but I could, I could guess.
I think what goes on?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
I have I don't remember that being a film, but
I'm sure. I'm sure it happened.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah it does.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
One.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Salt is so such a big thing that the Oxford
English Dictionary has four pages of references to salt. When
that beats all other foods. Oh my goodness, Uh, how
big a thing it is.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, it's also just really integral to a lot of history,
like a lot of things without salt. Well, aid, I
guess none of us would technically be alive, but b uh, yeah,
just just all kinds of technologies have been driven by
the quest for salt. This is true.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
And this is a special episode because we got to
talk to local Atlanta salt expert Susie Sheffield of Beautiful
Briny Sea.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yes, a maker of dry goods, including a number of
salt blends.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yes, And you'll get to hear a bit of that
interview at the end. And they were so gracious and
we got to try so many salt samples.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Oh, it was beautiful.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
They sent us home with like a goodie bag, Yes,
a frisbee, a frisbee.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Think, thank thank you so much to them. And uh yeah,
one of the first times that I've that I've heard
someone speak about the flavor of different salts the way
that she does.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
So it's really it's really great. And also, Susie, if
you're listening, don't panic about the health bit that's coming
up front. Oh yeah, because it's always better to for
your your health and for the taste of food to
use salt at home, to cook your own food if

(06:11):
you can, if you have time.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, and sparingly, and perhaps in blends to bring out
other flavors.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Perhaps perhaps in delicious, delicious blends.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
But now perhaps we should go ahead and answer answer
that question, Lauren.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Oh, salt salt? What is it?

Speaker 1 (06:29):
It's a big question. It is.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
There are lots of types of salt, but in general,
what we're talking about is sodium chloride. Yeah, sometimes sometimes
called table salt, sometimes the most common. It's also called halite,
which is salt's mineral name, which is also sometimes called
rock salt. Rock salt is generally not food grade, and
you probably should not lock it. It might contain mineral

(06:54):
or bacterial impurities that would not be good for you,
but it is great for getting a content cold enough
to make ice cream or for melting the ice on
your sidewalk.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, and despite what the seasoning aisle of your very
fancy local grosser might lead you to believe, there are
just three basic types of food grade salt got table salt,
sea salt, and kosher salt. Table salt is that fine grained,
clear to white, highly standardized stuff that you'll find in

(07:25):
salt shakers across the land. It's been processed to remove
mineral impurities and probably contain some kind of like non
clumping agents such as calcium phosphate, and also maybe idine
or other dietary additives. More on that in a second Okay.
Sea salt can be coarse or fine or flaky, depending
on how the crystals are grown and harvested and processed,

(07:48):
and it can come in a whole bunch of different
colors depending on what trace minerals exist in the evaporation
ponds or chambers where it's made. Iron oxide from volcanic
clay or keroteene algae might be the reason that a
salt is pink. Charcoal or sulfuric compounds can make salt black,
and sea clay or wood smoke can produce gray salts.

(08:11):
These can change the flavor of the salt a little
bit in terms of the minerals, or quite a lot
in terms of the smoke, depending on you know what
exactly is involved. Yeah, and kosher salt is coarse grained
and again clear or white. It is also processed to
remove impurities, but generally does not contain additives. It's called
kosher salt because it's used in making meats kosher. It

(08:33):
draws out the blood really quickly. Oh, we'll have to
do a whole other episode on koshering.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Oh yeah, we absolutely should.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Sure. Yeah. Quick cooking tip keep the size of your
salt's crystals in mind when you're cooking, because flakes and
fine crystals are best in situations like baking and finishing,
when you want to disperse the salt evenly and let
it dissolve quickly. Coarser grains don't smoosh in with each
other as much as finer grains wills, so if you're

(09:01):
measuring coarse grained salt, for a recipe that calls for
table salt, then you might need to add more of it. Okay,
sodium by itself is just highly volatile and chlorine is toxic,
but the two together are necessary for life in humans
and other animals.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
How can this be?

Speaker 2 (09:18):
I know, I thought I thought I was supposed to
eat less salt.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, that's what I hear.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Well, I mean you probably should, But the sodium in
salt is necessary for a few different bodily functions. It
helps your cells and organs maintain their proper fluid balance.
It's used in the contraction and relaxation of your muscle fibers,
you know, like including your heart, important stuff like that.
And it also transmits nerve impulses. So you need some

(09:46):
sodium in your diet, and since sodium molecules are fickle,
the best way for us to get it is via salt. Also,
on the good end, some salt helpfully comes iodized. That
that is, with small amounts of iodine added during manufacture.
And iodine is another essential mineral that our bodies cannot make,
so we have to get it from our food. Our

(10:07):
thyroid gland uses iodine to make the hormone thyroxin, which
sounds great, and it is great. It then uses that
thyroxin to help control just a whole bunch of different
bodily functions breathing, heart rate, metabolism, body weight. When we
don't get enough iodine, the thyroid enlarges and becomes overactive
in this attempt to grab up more, causing a goiter

(10:30):
to form. That's a kind of bulge at the front
of the neck where the thyroid is located, and thyroid
in that condition cannot make enough thyroxin, which can throw
off all of those functions I mentioned, and even worse,
it can stunt physical and mental growth in children. So, yeah,
idine is found naturally in seawater, and so if you're

(10:51):
eating seafood or vegetables that were grown on land that
was once a seabed frequently like coastal areas or other
low lying areas, can get enough on your own. But
for folks who live inland or at higher elevations and
who do not import a lot of food, hyperthyroidism can
be a serious problem. It was such an epidemic in

(11:12):
some parts of the United States in the nineteen twenties
that we started idizing salt because a it's easily done,
and b salt is predictably consumed by everybody. Yeah, yeah,
it's everywhere. In developing areas of the world. Stuff like
fluoride and folic acid are similarly added to salt for
public health purposes. But you only need a tiny amount

(11:35):
of salt to get your sodium, maybe as little as
like two hundred milligrams per day. Oo the average American
eats about three four hundred milligrams per day.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
That's a little bit higher than two hundred miligrams, just
a tiny bit, just a little bit. According to the CDC,
high salt consumption might come out to twenty billion dollars
a year in health costs. The research behind that number
is disputed, though worth noting.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
But it's a high amount, it is. And the problem
with salt is that when you eat too much of it,
your kidneys try to flush the excess sodium out through
your urine. But if they still can't flush enough, that
sodium can build up in the fluid between your cells
and your body will try to dilute it by holding
onto water, which increases the volume of the fluid between

(12:24):
your cells and the volume of your blood, and that
puts pressure on your blood vessels and makes your heart
work harder to pump all that blood, and eventually, with
continued exposure, this can harden the walls of your blood vessels,
creating high blood pressure and increasing your risk of stuff
like heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. Yeah, not good times.
Studies into how much salt is too much are also conflicting,

(12:49):
but most public health organizations agree that eating over two
three hundred milligrams a day will have negative impacts on
your health. That's about a tea spoon, and it's also
about two thirds of what the average American eats, so
reduced by a third, y'all okay, especially if you like
many of us, eat a lot of processed and heavily

(13:12):
salted foods in restaurants and at home, perhaps especially through snacks,
fast food, processed meats, and prepared meals, either box store frozen.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
I had this favorite meal as a kid, and it
was a mushroom feted Gini alfredo and a bag.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
And I remember the day when I realized that one
the serving size there were three servings in there, and
I was reading it as if it was one. If
it was one, so multiply everything by three and the
salt before multiplied was two three hundred.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Oh right, my goodness.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
And then that was the last time I ever ate it. Like,
even as a kid, I knew, oh wow, that's too
much good for you.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, that's great. I tend to salt as one of
the things I tend to ignore. But after doing this research,
I'm like, oh man, this is going to impact my
rum and habit.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Well it also, I remember the saturated fat.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
It was like seventy great a saturate that there were
other problems in the salt. It was enough for a
high school me to say to say, oh, you know what,
maybe I shouldn't be eating this.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Don't like it that much anymore? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The
best way to cut down on salt is to prepare
your own snacks and meals from fresh ingredients, though of
course that can be super expensive in terms of money
and or time. So just if your family has a
history of heart trouble, read your food labels, choose unsalted

(14:29):
or less salted foods, and add your own pizazz at home. Yeah,
you're pretty much guaranteed to use less than what would
be in pre seasoned foods, and you can also cut
back a little bit by experimenting with herbs and spices,
or step down off of pure salt by using seasoning plens.
But now, if you're asking yourself, all that health stuff
is terrifying. But what I'm here to learn is something
not terrifying.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
I was asking myself.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
That, Well, it's not really a question, but I thank
you for going with me on it. I appreciate the yes.
And so let's talk about how so is made generally
less terrifying. There is the mining involved of Salt exists
in two basic forms in nature, as rocks or halite
and dissolved in the ocean. Ocean water is salty because

(15:11):
of the water cycle. Rain and runoff collect sodium and
chloride on their way to the ocean, where the salt
collects when water evaporates to start the whole process over again.
Lakes generally don't get salty because they generally have outlets
to to keep their water flowing in fresh like a
good rap song.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, yeah, I see what you did there.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Halite is formed by deposits of salt from ancient oceans
that have been buried during hundreds of thousands of years
of tectonic plate shifts, which is pretty badass when it
is get right to it. Halite is mined the way
that other minerals are, via shafts that are drilled and
rooms cut out into the deposits, and the halite, like

(15:55):
I said, is usually used as rock salt. Most table
salt is created by something called solution mining. This is
where you find a salt deposit on the surface and
erect a well over it, then inject water down into
the salt to dissolve it. You pump out the resulting brine,
take it to a factory where the brine can be
treated to remove any impurities, and then you evaporate the

(16:17):
water out in vacuum pans.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Vacuum pans, oh yeah, ooh.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
High pressure, high heat, goodteps. The remaining salt is dried
into crystals and then refined, and sea salt, as you
may have guessed, starts with sea water or salty lake water.
Occasionally you build shallow pools or trays, fill them with
salt water and let the sun evaporate the water out.
When the salt reaches the right thickness for what you're

(16:44):
going for, you harvest it, then wash and refine it
to the crystal size that you want. And traditionally the
harvest is done by hand, which is why some sea
salts can be very expensive.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Ah okay, yeah, Well.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
That's our basic intro of salts, of this massive topic.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
But we've got a lot of history.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
For you, we do. But first we've got a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yes, all right, here we go, salt, human history, humans,
who what it is? I'm still trying to figure that out.
That is a different podcast, but on this podcast we're
going to talk about salt. And humans have been producing
salt through salt winning as far back as the Neolithic area.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Wow area area.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
That's a different thing the Neolithic era, but we were
gathering it from where it could be found tens of
thousands of years previous. Our early ancestors would follow trails
to salt licks blazed by animals and under human feet.
These paths turned into roads with villages alongside them. At first,

(18:06):
getting enough salt from the surface wasn't a problem, but
once humanities diet pivoted from salt rich meat two more
cereals and grains, getting enough of the stuff grew difficult,
and this made salt quite the pricey commodity, and it
led to the creation of several of the world's first
major trade routes yeah and first major roads too. One

(18:30):
of the earliest known instances of salt cultivation traces back
to six thousand BCE China at Lake Lake yung Chung.
During the dry season, water from the lake evaporated, leaving
salt flats ripe for picking sure harvesting. Several wars were
fault over control of this lake, perhaps probably most definitely

(18:51):
in part due to the salt. The first written record
of Chinese salt production surfaces around eight hundred BCE, but
in this writing are tails of salt production going back
over AE thousand years, when salt gatherers would put seawater
in clay pots and boil the water until all that
remained was salt. This was the same method later used

(19:12):
in Southern Europe and the Roman Empire. Further written records
indicate that around four hundred and fifty BCE, the Chinese
were producing salt using iron pans, and the process was
similar to that of the clay pot. For the most part,
early Chinese salt was used in the making of condiments
like we kind of talked about in ketchup paste or sauces,
including an early fermented fish and soybean sauce that was

(19:36):
the precursor to soy sauce.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, soy sauce is going to be a good topic.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
It is.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
Chinese governor Lee being figured out in two fifty two
BCE that the salt brine was coming from underground and
instructed miners to drill for the first brine wells. The
workers sometimes got sick and died seemingly randomly, or an
explosion or shafts of fire would take out several workers
at once. Soon, whispers and rumors of evil spirits from

(20:07):
the underworld were blamed for these deaths.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh, I think that's fair at that and totally Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
These rumors rose to such prominence two large wells gained
reputations as.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Hell Mouths hell MOUs Lauren.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
And each year the local governors would make offerings to
the well to keep the evil at bay.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, that was probably ineffective. Oh yeah, probably, I cent
you or so.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Later in one hundred CE, people were setting fire to
this invisible substance and using it for cooking, even making
mud insulated bamboo tubes situated over the holes where they
knew this invisible stuff was coming out to pipe it,
to pipe it, and they would put it in these
sheds called boiling houses. And inside these boiling houses were

(20:56):
iron pots filled with brine which was boiled down into
salt crystals with the mysterious invisible stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Oh wow, natural gas.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Natural gas.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, this was probably the first time it was ever used.
Salt production also led China to develop the percussive drilling,
the most high tech drilling method for several centuries.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
So they were headed away, yeah, way ahead.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
To this day, China is still the leading producer of salt.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
The ancient Egyptians figured out salt's usefulness and preservation, and
they employed their knowledge of this during mummification.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Ah so cool.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Mummies shipped down the Nile were tax in the same
category as salted meats.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
That's a little bit okay.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, tombs for rich folks going back over four thousand
years have been found to contain salted birds or fish,
similar to what the ancient Chinese had going on. Salt
was gathered from lake beds or nile marshes, then combined
with water and orven and then mixed with fish parts
to make a fish sauce that was very, very popular.

(22:06):
One ancient record praised there is no better food than
salted vegetables. I might agree, Oh yeah, I know. That's
pretty much the same process was used for preserving the mommies.
Oh well, the body is placed in natron, which is
known as divine salt, covered it entirely over for seventy days,
never longer seventy days.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
By two thy eight hundred BCE, the Egyptians were trading
their salted fish. The Phoenicians followed suit in eight hundred BCE.
China was in on the salt trade game by at
least eighteen hundred BCE. In sixth century BCE, England towns.
The England towns were formed near where salt could be found,
and this is where the suffix witch wich what comes from.

(22:57):
But at least by at least four hundred CE, northern
Europeans were getting salt from mines near Salzburg, which translates
to salt town.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
I get so excited about these like words.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Especially yeah, yeah, that anomology show someday, someday will happen
one day, Lauren.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
These mines weren't very stable, the ones near Salzburg, and
it wasn't uncommon for miners to find perfectly preserved bodies
of their predecessors.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Oh that's a little terrifying.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yep Rome was also built near salt, and the first
road they constructed to reach their saltworks after they moved
it a bit further away, was named Via Salaria the
Salt Road. As far back as sixth century BCE, Roman
leaders controlled the salt trade in the empire, and during
times of turmoil or poverty, Roman officials would make sure

(23:49):
the price of salt was low to keep people calm,
except during the Punic Wars, when a high salt tax
was used to fund the military. The tax was based
off of your home's distance from the salt mine, and
the fellow who determined this was no joke called the Sultanator.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Sultanator, the Sultanator. I don't even have a pun prepared
for this.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
I have a great visual in my head, but that
doesn't help anybody.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
No.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Well, nonetheless, we'll work on it right in if you've
got one Sultanator pun and some more etymology, the Roman
word for salts, saal, is closely related to the goddess
of health solace because they would use it not only
to preserve meats, but also to preserve your health as

(24:39):
an antiseptic. Sal is also where the word salary comes
from and the word soldier. A soldier's pay used to
have a salt component unless the soldier wasn't cutting it,
and his pay would be slash because he wasn't worth
his salt. This phrase also derived from the practice of
buying slaves with in both Italy and Greece. Salad also

(25:04):
comes from the Roman word for salt, because the Romans
would salt their lettuce.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Salting the earth comes from the ancient practice of militaries
making sure crops couldn't grow back by piwing the fields
with salts.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
A large salt deposits had already been mined in India
prior to Alexander the Great's arrival. The Aztec and Maya
traded salt pre Columbus too. And before we've talked about
Venice and the influence it wielded over the spice trade,
and it was no different with salt trade with Constantinople
in particular, made.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Them quite rich.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
Those in Power and China were also doing their best
to take control of the salt trade in their country.
By first century CE, Emperor JOODI organized a group to
discuss the salt and iron monopoly, which was documented in
the Discord Discourse on Salt and Iron. By the first
entry cees all accounted for half of the Chinese state's revenue.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
By four century SEA, the Chinese suspected a link between
iodine deficiency and goiters, so they were already they.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Were on it.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, if we look at Africa. By sixth century CE,
Moorish traders would use salt to pay for an ounce
of gold, and until nineteen thirty five, salt slabs were
a currency in Ethiopia. Wow, Marco Polo, it's all tales
of salt coins with Genghis Khan's face on them in
twelve ninety five. Other uses for salt started popping up

(26:32):
in the eighteenth century, including the invention of a method
to get sodium carbonate in seventeen ninety two, which led
to soda water.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
All right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
By eighteen fifty, that's where fifteen percent of the salt
in France was going. Ah, very popular. Yeah, salts and
high taxes on salt. That was one of the many
grievances that led to the French Revolution. Much later, in
the nineteen thirties, the British solely controlled and profited from
Indian salt production, and Gandhi protested by leading a large

(27:03):
group to the coast to make their own their own
salt in the Salt March to Donde.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
Wow Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
In eighteen hundreds France, Napoleon called for a deep dive
and the connection between goiters an iodine defficiency, which produced
the first scientific evidence and led to the recommendation of
Iodie's salt. In eighteen thirty three, French scientist Bi Courtois
first isolated iodine from I.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Know, I said iodine.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Laura and I have been doing this the whole time,
iodine from the burnt remains of seaweed a couple of
decades earlier, in eighteen eleven. The reason Napoleon pushed for
this was to get to the bottom of why large
swaths of men from certain regions were being rejected from
military service. It would become commercially available in the States
in the nineteen twenties. I'd a salt in early America.

(27:55):
The first patent for salt production went to Massachusetts, which
would continue to produce salt for two hundred years. The
main reason the Erie Canal opened was mainly to speed
up the transportation of salt.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, h salt was such an important resource during the
American Civil War. Any man on the Confederate side willing
to work in salt production was waived of military service,
particularly after the Union captured Confederate salt works.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh wow yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
But lately, due to those health things we mentioned earlier,
salt has taken a.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Bit of a hit in popularity. But I would say,
like fancy or salt is way on the rise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Is which is nice. It's nice to have options.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
It really is, it really is. So that's kind of a.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Whirlwind of history.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Yes, Yes, there's a lot out there about salt.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah. And the reasons why salt was this important, in
addition to being a thing that we literally need to
make our bodies work, is that it's got a couple
other really cool properties. And we will get into those
after one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,

(29:13):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Okay, we eat a lot of salt, yes, we've established this, yes,
but we actually use more of it to salt roads
during the winter.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
We absolutely do. We do.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Adding salt to roads lowers the rate of accidents by
over eighty percent, which is a big deal, especially because
Andrew Prevention decide snow covered roads can cost a state
up to seven hundred million dollars a day here in the.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
US, and like lost workforce and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Yeah. Yeah, so it does have a lot of these
fascinating sort of chemical properties.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
And I ran across.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
It's like a it's a Smoky the Bear esque mascot name.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Old Salty, Old Salty. See looks.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
I guarantee you what your pick string in your head
is what it is. He's got like a grizzly beard
and a pipe, and his slogan is never gamble in
an unsalted robe, Old Salty.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Old Salty. I think, Oh, man, if you weren't copyright protected,
which I'm sure he is, then he would be a
new character in our food stuff.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Bill, yes, that we're building out.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Yeah. I cannot tell you how old Salty works, but
I can tell you the reasons behind some of these
chemical and physical properties it salt has, because it really
is kind of a miracle worker. Yeah. When salt forms
a solution with water, it changes the temperature at which

(30:45):
the water or the solution really freezes and boils. So
salt water freezes at a lower temperature than regular water does.
That's why salt is applied to roads. It forms a
solution with the ice and keeps that salt liquid at
below freezing temperatures. That's why you also might add salt
to the ice bath that you use to chill the

(31:07):
bowl of an old fashioned ice cream maker. As the
salt melts the ice, the solution gets colder than it
was because the physical process of melting releases heat energy.
So it goes like a few like noticeably degrees colder
and will therefore help your ice cream form up faster.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Well, thanks salt.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah. Also, salty water boils at a higher temperature than
regular water. It won't make a pot of water boil faster,
but it will make it boil hotter.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Oh so, if you're, for.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Example, dropping pasta into it, it's going to cook a
little bit quicker, which is exactly what you want for
something for like a good Aldente pasta, because if you
leave it in there, it just gets soggy. Nobody wants, right,
Nobody wants soggy pasta. Do you remember the olive garden conundrum.
The olive garden conundrum, that's what I'm calling it. What, No,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
It was like an economic I feel kind of bad
for all of ourn. Not that I like oliver Ourn, but.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
They weren't putting salt in their water to boil it.
And it's like such a basic thing. There's some economic
they call it the olive garden something, oh, where they
would have been saving money and producing a better product
had they done this simple stet. Oh.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
I don't want to hit on on olive gardens. Oh,
I kind of do much longer, So let's move on.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah. Another one of the amazing properties of salt is
that it is hygroscopic uh huh, which is a fancy
way of saying that it attracts water molecules. Crystals of
salt actually absorb molecules of water the way that a
towel does, or even more hardcore than a towel does. Really,
because the salt will keep absorbing water until it dissolves

(32:50):
into a salt water solution. Your average bath towel will
not do that, No, ma'am. No, If it does, I'm
not sure who you even call at that point ghostbusters
if they were clearly obviously and this not the Ghostbusters,
but the hygroscopic thing is why salt is such a
good preservative. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna unpack that a

(33:12):
little bit. When food spoils, it means microorganisms have started
eating your food before you had a chance to get
to it. That a makes it gross and b makes
it possibly hazardous to eat, because those microorganisms might produce
toxic byproducts, either in the food or in your body
if you if you eat them for once, this is
a non triumphant cry of bacteria.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Poop.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
It's like a poop. Oh yeah, But those microorganisms need
water to live, just like you and me. There's a
lot of water in fresh foods, and in chemistry, this
is measured in what's called the product water activity. It's
it's a number that signifies how many free water molecules

(33:55):
are present in the given food. Many fresh foods have
around ero point nine to nine water activity. If you
lower that to point nine four, most disease causing bacteria
cannot grow, and around point nine to one most any
bacteria cannot grow. Molds are a little bit hardier. You've
got to go below like point eight zero. But you

(34:15):
can achieve this through salt curing. When you put salt
on a food, it'll draw water molecules out of the
food until it forms a salt water solution. The solution
will then, via the process of osmosis, work to balance
the molecules of salt inside and outside of the food,
meaning that salt goes in and water goes out to
the surface where it can evaporate. Salt also messes with

(34:39):
microorganisms in another way. It can disrupt the activity of
their enzymes and even weaken the molecular structure of their DNA,
which makes it pretty hard for them to like thrive
and reproduce.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Yeah, I imagine, so yeah, not good.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
I keep thinking about this at Seinfeld episode where George's
dad he was like a chef for the army and
Vietnam and he got this shipment of bad meat and
he was trying to hide that it did spoil, and
he put like so much salt and seasoning on it,
and then everybody got sick, and he you know, he
was having like flashbacks.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
It was playing.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
It was some movie I haven't seen that they were parroting,
but it stuck with me.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
I bet it was apocalypse.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Now probably it probably was further research.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Different thing, absolutely, but we do have a little bit
more about one of the things I really wanted to know,
salt's connection to religion and superstition.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's not just a well I mean, I'm
not the only one who would call it a miracle worker.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
No, no, you're not.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Throughout history, salt has held an almost supernatural importance. According
to Homer, salt was divine, and I said that was
such a like attitude, I didn't need to Plano called
it a substance dear to the gods. From the Bible
the Vidgus two thirteen, with all thine offerings, thou shalt

(36:02):
offer salt. There's also, of course, ye are the salt
of the earth, which denotes the worthy members of the
Christian flock.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
And the biblical story of Lot.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
He and his family are fling the city of Sodom
and he they're all instructed to never look back, but
Lot's doubtful wife did just that and turned into a
pillar of salt. A later, though, salt seemed to get
back in Christianity's Good Book. Oh man, I was so
proud of myself when I wrote that I.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Was like, Eddie, you're really making it work today.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
In early rooms, salt was placed on the lips of
an eight day old infant a baptismal ceremony, which evolved
to the placing of a salt morsel in the baby's
mouth to make sure the whole thing really took Oh good, Yeah,
because it's a preservative. The Jewish people saw it as
a symbol of the everlasting covenant between God and Israel,
and the salt as a purifier thing. Is probably where

(37:00):
the trope you see in horror and supernatural entertainment of
making a circle of salt are placing salt at the doors,
in the windows, and this will protect you from malevolent
ghost or spirits. Buddhism and Shintoism holds similar beliefs about
the cleansing aspects of salt. In the Shinto right of
sumo wrestling, a handful of salt is tossed in to

(37:21):
the center of the ring before the wrestlers enter, and
for Buddhist tradition, salt is tossed over the shoulder before
returning to your home after a funeral to get rid
of any evil spirits that are riding on your back.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
So yeah, salt tossing goes on in these Yeah. I think.
I think there's gonna be another one in a second.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
I totally forgot until I was doing this research that
my mom gave me a purifying Himalayan salt lamp for Christmas.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Is here.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, Oh wow, I like it. It's pretty.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, yeahs are beautiful.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
In Ozark superstition, it's a widely held belief that the
devil hates salt. Okay, and therefore which is eat very
little salt. So people would observe how much much salt
you ladies be eaten. Oh and if you weren't eating
that much salt, it could be in some serious trouble.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
Oh No.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Eventually this religiosity took on a more supernatural aspect. You
would cry over spilled salt, for example, because it meant
in pending doom.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Leonardo da Vinci even depicted this in his painting of
the Last Supper with the spilled Salt cellar. And yeah,
I didn't know that's what that was.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
And then I read this. While I'm reading what I wrote,
I wrote this thing that I.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Read, Oh my gosh, to dispatch this bad omen the
subject of the spilled salt would pinch some between the
fingers and toss it over the left shoulder.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
The left side was where all the bad spirits were
hanging out. Clearly anything and you could get worse things
than bad spirits.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
I'm going to guess that's where the tossing the salt
over the shoulder for good luck, or to word off
bad luck comes from. But I never found anything definitive
about that. And a further note about the salt seller,
which is sort of a tub for salt. Until the
late eighteenth century, according to Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette,

(39:15):
social status at banquets was determined by where the guests
sat in relation to the usually very fancy silver salt seller. Yeah,
so the host and any distinguished guests were seated at
the head of the table or above the salt. The
further below the salt you were, the less important you were, and.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
You might as well just go, oh man, you're at
the other end of the table.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Duly noted. If I ever want to deliver a really
good like seventeen hundred sick burn, okay.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
No one gets it, but in your head you're like, ah,
they'll never know. There are a couple of theories about
where the phrase grain of salt comes from, One involving
our old friend plenty Yeah. His writings described a recipe
for a poison that called for a grain of salt
to as an antidote, meaning you can take the threats

(40:09):
of being poisoned less seriously, or with a grain of salt.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
A different version of the story, Roman General POMPEII allegedly
would swallow small portions of a bunch of different poisons
in an effort to make himself immune, and instead of
a spoonful of sugar, he used some salt to.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Help the poison go down. Ah.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Yeah, sure, I prove the taste of anything. It could
also be a mistranslation, and Latin it could translate to
either with a grain of salt or with a grain
of wit.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Oh yeah, that actually makes a lot more sense than
any of those other things. It probably is that feel
really silly, now, don't.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Feel silly, Lauren. As for the phrase salty a.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Meaning irritated, it dates all the way back to nineteen
thirty eight, all right, but it was first submitted to
Urban Dictionary in two thousand and two. It's more modern
usage is thought to have originated in online gaming communities.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Huh yeah, cheers to whoever brought that one back.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, I know, I'm like nineteen thirty eight.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
Aside from religion, there are so many fairy tales with salts,
almost all of which having some aspect of salt being
worth as much as, if not more than, gold, or
why the seas are salty.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
It usually involves some kind of revenge.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Yeah, So if you're interested in food and stuff fairy
tales about salt, they are out there.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Oh more fairy tales for our story hours, I know, perfect, Yes, okay, great,
make a catalog.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
And a couple of days ago for Laura and I
not probably for you listening.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Probably not.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
That's a weird time thing that happens with podcasting. Lauren
and I we got to going on food stuff field trip.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
She's so great. So many opportunities around Atlanta, yeah, they are,
there are And we got to go visit beautiful Briny
Sea where they make salts and also.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
Blends and other dry goods. Oh yeah, sprinkles sugar. Yeah,
it was lovely. We got to talk to the founder, Susie.
She was fantastic, and we got to try a out
of salt.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Oh yeah, eleven different kinds of salt. Yeah, seven kinds
of salt and four blends.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
It was really great.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
It was great to hear someone so passionate talk about
salt like it was wine.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
And that was my favorite part.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Oh yeah, like a like a perfume, Like a perfumer
would discuss different scent notes. So yeah, so we have
some of that interview for you to listen to.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
All right, So, hi, who are you?

Speaker 5 (42:41):
Cez Sheffield might have a company called Beautiful Briny Sea
in Atlanta's historic Grant Park, and you.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Guys produce a whole bunch of salt blends and sugar
blends and sprinkles and dry goods.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
Is the way I like to think of it.

Speaker 5 (42:56):
So I've always been involved in food. I actually at
a restaurant for seven teen years, and when I moved
back to Atlanta, my hometown, I knew I didn't want
to have a restaurant, and I tried to think of
the most shelf stable venture where it could still work
with fresh ingredients and farmers and local markets. And so
salts seem to be a perfect a perfect starting point

(43:18):
and it's actually become a palette to me. So a
way to kind of express things and evoke flavors that
I want or create items that kind of tell a story.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
So I'm like slightly salt overwhelmed. Right now. We're sitting
here in front of a spread of it looks like
you've got four salt blends and I can't count six types.

Speaker 4 (43:43):
Six we bring in. It's sort of like a laboratory
back there.

Speaker 5 (43:47):
Any type of salt, anything that I read about, anything
that I find, you know, we just kind of bring
it in, figure out it's like where it hits on
a salt scale, and then what it's finishes. So but
we use the salt that I and all of our blends.
It's an Atlantic Ocean salt. The water's harvested off the
coast of Brazil. It's solar evaporated, and I like it

(44:08):
because it's slightly salt forward, but it has an immaculately
clean finish, so it just picks up anything you blend
with it.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
So yeah, for like a good like neutral salt, but
there are all kinds of other different I mean, you're
talking about salt in the way that I don't think
I've ever heard anyone speak with with flavor profiles.

Speaker 5 (44:29):
Salt is just I mean, like wine, it imparts the
flavor of the lay of the land that it's surrounded
in salt. All salt does come from seawater. It all
comes from the ocean. But you have to understand, like
some oceans are ancient and or just like big rock
beds now, so the pin Himalayan for example, and the
Bolivian salt, those are just harvested from ancient, ancient oceans.

(44:51):
We have surface oceans the water that we see now,
that's where you get that large variety like your mald
In salt, all the flake salts.

Speaker 4 (44:57):
You see.

Speaker 5 (44:58):
There is one interesting company, Dickinson in West Virginia. They
have an ancient ocean underground and they actually like pipe
it in and then uh solar evaporate it. But it's
it's it's it's fascinating. So that's that's one company that's
really interesting to read. Just like in the Jacobs and
Salt Company, he's gathering water from the Pacific Northwest in

(45:20):
Oregon and then he kettle boils it, which is fascinating,
makes these beautiful flakes.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
I'm I'm curious about how just how the harvesting works.
How do you I mean you're are you growing your
own crystals and then back in Yes.

Speaker 5 (45:36):
There they're different processes like these. They're they're mind salts,
which you know you were getting the mineral deposit from
an ancient ocean and at the bottom of the mountain
or inside a mountain.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
It's truly mined.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
Then you have some of these flake salts gathering the
sea water and putting it on trays and then solar
evaporating it. They're also there techniques where you gather the seawater,
you let it settle, and then boil it. So in
old text you can see big cauldrons of boiling water

(46:09):
and at the end the residue. Your byproduct is your salt.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
So and the size of the grains is fascinating to
me and has so much to do with how it
dissolves in your food or in your mouth. How does
that go into your process of figuring out what to
do with stuff.

Speaker 5 (46:26):
Well, I prefer a kosher size grain. It's just the
way I've learned to cook. And I think a lot
of people do. Fine salt, you know, is great for finishing,
and some of them like a flur to sell or
like the cell gree here, they're naturally like a finer grain.
They're softer and they hold a lot of moisture. With
our truffle salt, we use a flur to sell for

(46:47):
that reason. It's just the moisture kind of traps that
really distinct, really.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
Strong flavor of the mushroom.

Speaker 5 (46:53):
But then your flake salts, that's what's really wonderful about
cooking with them. You just grab it and you can
break it into the size grain that you like. And
some naturally, like some of these, especially the two Hawaiians,
some will naturally just break into like a kosher size,
if you will, grain, and some, like I was saying,
or more sugary, more sandy. But the flake salt's really
fun to work with. It's hard to They're actually great

(47:16):
with cocktails too, because it'll kind of float and then
and and dissolve a little, so you have sort of
this layer of and sometimes you know, you do want
you do want that crunch of salt when you're cooking,
you know, if you wanted it as a finishing, but
somewhere throughout the meal you're like, oh, hello, you know,
so that's pleasant. Yeah, So that's great to work with
the flake salts for that reason. So you were asking earlier,

(47:38):
like how each salt is distinct and different. Just think
of like a wine region or why you know, like
if you are eating a goat cheese, where the goats
have been eating alfalfa and alfalfa and clover and lavender,
those those those things come through. So these dried up
if you can imagine, like how rich and dense like

(48:01):
these mind salts where the ocean and all the fossils,
and I mean, so it's really fascinating just how each
one distinctly tastes different.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Why sea salt rather than manufactured salt.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
I mean not that it's not manufactured, I.

Speaker 5 (48:15):
Suppose, but it's just so pure and so clean and
has such a distinct personality. And salt is used for
many things and has been since the beginning of time.
For one, you know, it's a preservative. It's you know,
not to be confused, it's not like a seasoning. It's
actually a flavor enhancer. I like to think of it

(48:37):
in two forms, like a flavor enhancer but also a
flavor moderator. Like I just like if you think of
the human body, our sodine potassium pump keeps every function
and every organ and every system in check.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
So just like if you have.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
Like a dish and you're trying to, you know, figure
it out, or if it's a little too acidic or
a little too sweet, or if it's bitter, or if
all the ingredients are in there proportionately, but it's just
not working. Salt just transforms. That makes things happen. It
pulls pulls things together. And as far as being a
flavor enhancer, think of like the best summer tomato and

(49:15):
when you take a bite, it's like equal parts sweet
and acidic, and it's just fabulous. And if you put
a little bit of salt on it, it's that much
more fabulous. But it doesn't change the way it tastes,
just makes it a little bit bigger.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
So and how do you how do you how do
you work with that when you're creating these blends.

Speaker 5 (49:33):
Well, the reason, like I was saying, the reason that
I chose this Atlantic the Brazilian Ocean salt from when
it it naturally breaks into this sort of kosher sized grain,
it's flavor, it's there's there's a little punch of salt
up front, but then after that it's super clean. So
it's I know, I always know where it's going to hit.
So it's it's just like a blank canvas. Every time
I kind of want to tell a story or every

(49:54):
time I want to create a blend, I just I
know exactly what my baseline is.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
So could you talk about the blends that we have
here today?

Speaker 4 (50:02):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (50:02):
When I when I first started the company, it was rosemary, lavender, mushroom,
and pink peppercorn. Those are my four flavors. It's just
super basic. But then one day I thought, you know,
I'm just gonna try and make a blend. So without
even thinking, I just kind of came up with this
first flavor that you see here, and I was like,
you know what, this is my first one. It's going

(50:23):
to have to have a fabulous name. And I woke
up one morning it's like, okay, magic unicorn. So for
no reason, for no reason, but it's smoke, paprika, garlic, rosemary, meer, lemon,
and a little celery and it's just sort of an
all purpose flavoring with the sea salt and the great thing,
you know, the salt preserves the herbs and spices herbs

(50:43):
and spices and fuse the salt and then once this,
you know, once I started playing around in getting more
ingredients in the studio, and I decided to start kind
of going on food memories or food stories or my
favorite things that I like to eat, and kind of
recreating it through the salt. So French picnic is kind
of everything I like.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Like.

Speaker 5 (51:02):
Once I was asked to describe my cooking, SELLE just
out came French picnic because I love the sort of
discipline of a French kitchen. But then you just the
idea of a picnic and just the whimsy and the
creativity behind just preparing this meal. So I think charcrudery, grain, mustard,
which I just love any kind of mustard, fresh herbs

(51:23):
of course always. So this is Dijon mustard, garlic, herb
du Provence, some pink peppercorn, and it just has that
sort of tang from the mustard. The garlic is there,
and then the herbs are subtle. You can tell each one,
but at the same time you can't. So it's one
of my favorites to work with. And then this one,
this is called campfire. And I grew up every summer

(51:46):
we would spend in western North Carolina. I went to
camp there all my life and we'd go camping and
my parents had a house. And so I mean since
literally like I was probably three years old, I'm that
part of western North Carolina, the ancient Blachon Mountains, and
there's certain like the smells, especially because of the hemlock
forests there. It's just it has a distinct smell, and

(52:07):
so I wanted to create this flavor. It's it's got cuman,
so that's kind of earthy like the forest floor. It's
got sumac, which is that sour note in there from
just reminiscent of like BlackBerry picking. It's got chilis just
sort of like they campfire. So and it surprisingly like
with the sumac and the cuman, which sometimes a little

(52:30):
cuman for me goes a long way. But I'm okay
with it in there because all of those flavors kind
of work together.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
So this is slightly off the topic of salt. But
so you're you're talking about working with scent memories and
stuff like that. Can I can I ask if you
have any foods that you're just completely nostalgic for.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
I grew up with a great mom cook. My mom
just made just like great, simple, basic things, and you know,
in the summer. I think anything over rice, like stewed tomatoes, okra,
corn peas, all these kind of simple late summer Southern dishes.
That's one sort of comfort food to me always. I
love anything with anything that can have a vinegarrette or

(53:12):
a little bit of acid to it, any sort of dish.
I love the all this fermentation happening now, and like
the sourness of foods and like with the you know,
sour beers even which actually the Wrecking Bar here in town,
they come over, they found this speaking of like different
salts and different flavors. They came in and it took
them literally like ten minutes to figure out what they wanted.

(53:33):
They tasted all of these salts, so they took three
and blended it together, and that's what they used to
make their goza and the salinity.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
And you can tell.

Speaker 5 (53:40):
Exactly what they were going forward because they were i
mean beer nerding it up big time. But they were
great salt nerds, like they did a great job. They
just went boom boom boom, blended it, got the portions
just right. And so they come over with you know,
we have an open door policy here with all the
chefs and the bar programs. But they they walked right
downe and knew exactly what they wanted and did it
after just tasting one second.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
So sorry to get off topic, but that's how I
go at all. No, that's great, that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Is there a lot of experimenting that goes on.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
How do you work out like the ratios and blimbs
and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 (54:13):
Well, I am a terrible This is why you will
never want me to bake anything for you. I'm a terrible,
terrible measure. I don't I don't. I just come in
and kind of make it up as I go along. Well,
then of course having the company kind of have to
have a little structure. But so for for all of
these favors, like everyone has its different story about how
it was created, Like I was either craving a flavor

(54:34):
and wanting to create a food memory, or there's a
happy accident or but mostly like magic unicorn, first try
got it, write everything down, French picnic.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
It took months.

Speaker 5 (54:45):
I would throw it out. Try something oh too much lavender?
Oh wait, pink peppercorn. But I don't want the texture,
so you know, and I want the sweetness of the
pink peppercorn. I don't want the I don't want the
pepper to even translate, you know, but I do like
that color, and I do like that after sweetness, especially
the pink peppercorn. And I was trying to find a
way for a while, like how to take all the
skin off the peppercorn, and I actually found way, so

(55:07):
we do we'd like sit and like scrape all the
skin off so you have that residual sweetness, but you
don't have like the pepper competing with the salt.

Speaker 4 (55:16):
So and I totally already forgot what you asked, so sorry,
oh oh the recipes.

Speaker 5 (55:22):
So yeah, it's it's sort of it's sort of like,
you know, shoes, Like you buy shoes and then you
need an outfit to go with it.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
Later you have an outfit and you need to find shoes.

Speaker 5 (55:30):
So it's just sort of like, you know, what's what's
next and when when I if I let a flavor go,
then I'll have to think of the next flavor that
I want. But what's been really interesting and one of
the most exciting and unexpected parts about this for our collaborations,
and the first one of the very first was there's

(55:50):
a wonderful store in New York City called fishs Eddie
and it's on the Broadway in sixteenth I think.

Speaker 4 (55:57):
But Julie, the owner.

Speaker 5 (56:00):
Is I was at a trade show, my first trade show,
so I was all buttoned up and trying to be
extra on the ball, and she's like seasoned retail wizard,
so she she kind of was circling the booth and
then she walked up to me and she said, so
do you do can you make special blends?

Speaker 4 (56:18):
Do you do cuss mortars?

Speaker 5 (56:18):
And I was like sure, you know, never having done
one before. And she said, okay, well I need Assault.
It's New York and I need Assault that's Jewish.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
Can you make me?

Speaker 5 (56:27):
And I said yes, yes, of course, And so that's
where we came up with the everything bagel salt and
and so then I'm trying to think that people call
all the time like and just wanting like can you
do this?

Speaker 4 (56:41):
Can do that?

Speaker 5 (56:42):
And if if the answer is either yes, of course
or I don't know, come on in and let's figure out.
We've started partnering with Delta, and their executive chef came
in yesterday and he just had this long list of
words like Spanish things like umami or so we would
just sit and like make these flavors. So we he

(57:03):
left with about fourteen different blends. Paul Calvert at Ticondrega
Club a couple of months ago he was working on
a cocktail and he said, can you make me a
kafir lime salt?

Speaker 4 (57:17):
And I was like sure.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
But then my next steps are like, you know, do
you want do you want a flake salt? Do you
want it to sink? Do you want it to garnish?
Do you want it to garnish the outside of the glass.
So there are these fun like little formulas like but
you really literally make it up as you go along.
So I send them three samples. Do you want it
to be, you know, a sweet finish? Do you want
to you know, punch in the face finish? You know?
And so he we kind of had the conversation back
and forth and I made him three samples and he

(57:39):
picked the one he liked. So it's always fun, That's
what I'm saying. The salt is just this perfect canvas
to play with. And but as far as a nailing,
like a formula or something, I just say, it's sort
of sort of sort of like you would I guess,
you know, uh, with artists, like there's always unfinished work
or you know, you like when people come in.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
We have people come in and make their in blends
all the time.

Speaker 5 (58:03):
And my first rule is like, do not try to
rescue what you're making, like if if you don't like it,
like please dump it out like there's no there's no sense.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
So that's always fun.

Speaker 5 (58:13):
But people make some great stuff, like really great stuff
and just out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
So I got a lot of crazy ingredients back there. Yeah,
this is this might be a big ask off the
top of your head. You could you just like like
list off like what you've got back there, like like
what what what are you playing with in your palette?

Speaker 5 (58:32):
I mean, it's it's constantly evolving. I mean, well, if
it's it's sort of like going through someone's drawer if
you reach like behind, like of course we have all
the aliums up front, but then if you reach behind,
we have cedar tips and then so it's sort of
like going through somebody's kitchen cabinet, which I invite everyone
to please come over at anytime we have an open
or Plus it's more fun that way. Like just you

(58:53):
get inspiration from anything, like just and I'll call or
get online or look through catalogs and source of some
of that, or like the long Pepper, which is like
multiple personality disorder, Like I'm still trying to figure out
how to work with that.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
Women, it's like.

Speaker 5 (59:08):
Sour and then it's hot and then it goes away
and that comes back to get you and so you know,
So we have tons of little jars of things like
that Terry Coble at the Wrecking Bar brought us. He
smoked some beets and then dehydrated them. So we have
dehydrated smoked beats, so you can imagine the smokiness and
then you're like awesome, oh whoa hea tho sweet and

(59:28):
then you know so and then the green the tips
were still on them, so there's that green or baceous.

Speaker 4 (59:32):
So it's like all sorts of things.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
So anything and everything is back there, and people bring
us stuff all the time. We have service berries growing
out front, so once those are ready, I'm gonna dry some.
We'll see what that's like. So every day something different,
which is great. That's why I love this palette that
salt provides.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
So that's fun, yeah, exciting. How many do you how
many blends have you made?

Speaker 5 (59:58):
You know, we have fourteen blends that we make. We
have about seven or eight collaborations with our one of
our biggest partners, and I say partnered in the truest
sense because we just have we have such a great
working relationship as Williams Sonoma, which all of these partnerships

(01:00:18):
happened totally organically, like we were a tiny company Williams Cinema.
I was here at eight o'clock one night and I
got an email from this girl who saw something about
a farmer's market post and she said, oh, would you
mind sending samples. I was like, yes, big, big, fancy company,
and so I ran. I ran to FedEx because it
was an eight thirty cut off, and I dropped in
the mail. And then pont City Market opened and AsSalt

(01:00:40):
ended up there and now we have close to twenty
skews with them. But when I say they're wonderful to
work with this, because like they're just like can you
do this, Like let's have a conversation about this, and
what they like to do with all their products, everything
kind of tells the story. So like one time I
even get an email, Sam, can you do some Portland
Portland stuff?

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
I was like Okay, So you.

Speaker 5 (01:01:01):
Just kind of it's just this fun conversation you have
with yourself, you have with each other, you have with yourself,
with your food memories or your travel memories. So and
then Delta, you know, since they're located here, we had
this woman call us because she saw that she called
the one eight hundred number and then she liked at
the cana, was like, oh, you're in Atlanta. She had

(01:01:22):
gotten a can of our Friends Forever, which is I
forgot to bring that out. We should have brought Friends Forever. Oh,
that's a fun story. She she came and just like, oh,
I see you're in Atlanta. Do you mind if I
swing by? So she came and like her workout clothes
and walked in, and then when she was in the back, she's.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
Like, so I work for Delta.

Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
We do all their sky club experiences, like do you
guys mind coming and bringing lunch Friday and telling us
your story and so yes, and we did, and so
now we were partnering with them to make all these
really cool flavors for their sky club. So because said
the guy came in the other day and we had
a great time just make up.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
I mean, he left with sacks of ideas.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
So yeah, Friends Forever is the one that's uh, honey,
honey and salt honey, and how do you how do
you do the honey granules?

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
Well, so it's it's spun honey that's been dehydrated and
then it's ground on.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
And I did not make it for myself.

Speaker 5 (01:02:18):
I made it for my sweetheart, who loves sweet and
savory and I want those two as far apart as possible.
So it's called Friends Forever, and it's honey in salts
like hugs and tears and you know so, but yeah,
it's it's my least favorite, I'm not afraid to say,
but it's it's a lot of people's favorite.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
So very simple. It's simple, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:02:40):
I mean just the history of salt itself is fascinating.
I mean, salt wars, a million, bazillion literary references in salt,
just the whole salt trade in general currency. Salt is
a form of currency. It's just fascinating. I encourage anyone
to study, I mean, in basic the basic form of
human life, salt. So and you know, people can spell,

(01:03:05):
you know, literary references and ancient things. But my favorite,
especially for what I do for a living is R. W.
Apple Junior. He was the travel and food critic for
The Times forever. Uh to for a contemporary quote without
without salt, life would be impossible.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
Without pepper, life would be impossibly dull. And I've always
loved that, So yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
I agree. And that brings us to the end of
this classic episode. We hope that you enjoyed it as
much as we did, and as much as we enjoyed
all of the salts we got to try and talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Yeah oh yeah, oh and we and we did. We
did get to go back and do that salt blending situation,
and we made we made a couple of really delicious
ones that we never followed up about, so they never
like never like got our own well at that point
food stuff, but now savor salt blend. I guess we

(01:04:05):
could go back.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
We could. It was really good. It was meant for
like a bloody Mary kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yeah situation, and it was kind of bloody Mary flavored.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
It was very good. I was I was impressed, but
probably shouldn't have been, but hey.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Yeah, oh it was really fun. It was way too
much fun. I just want to go, Yeah, pour salt
into tiny dishes again, it felt.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Very like science experiment. It was fun. Yeah. Well perhaps
in the future.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Perhaps in the future, Laura, but for now. If you
listeners would like to email us, you can. Our email
is hello at savorpod dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that let's mar good things are coming

(01:05:04):
your way.