/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Salt No.6117512]

So while visiting my mother, I went grocery shopping with her. She found these "gourmet" sea salts that were pretty expensive and bought a few different kinds. Are these for real though? They just seem like a gimmick of differently dyed salts. There's no difference in the taste or anything. Kind of a waste of money.

[Anonymous No.6117539]

They're not dyed, they are mostly mined from places that are dried up ancient oceans and the different minerals determine what color the salt is. There are slight differences in taste. The mark up in price of the "gourmet" salts is massive, they put it in these fancy little jars and charge an arm and a leg for it. Salt is cheap, marketing just has people sucked in.

[Anonymous No.6117542]

they can taste different based on the mineral content which doesn't necessarily have any bearing on colour.

[Anonymous No.6117547]

>dissing the pure pink himalayan salt on /ck/

[Anonymous No.6117560]

>>6117539
I've seen a lot of claims that it's this "magical healthy salt". Which is why my mother bought them. Still bullshit though if it's just normal salt with colored rocks in it.

[Anonymous No.6117564]

its ALMOST exclusively a marketing scheme

[Anonymous No.6117574]

>>6117560

> Still bullshit though if it's just normal salt with colored rocks in it.

that implies that they're adding the coloured rocks to it, which they're probably not doing.

the mineral content of the different salts may or may not be beneficial for your health. obviously there are better ways of getting this stuff if the salt is overpriced but that doesn't make it entirely a scam, they're not really misleading the consumer.

[Anonymous No.6117589]

>>6117560

that's essentially what it is

some gourmet salts are decent though, albeit not for health reasons. Smoked sea salt, for example, can be a really nice compliment to some things.

I have a Himalayan salt candle holder though that I got for christmas that I think is actually really cool. That's as much Himalayan salt as I have in my house.

[Anonymous No.6117604]

I can get PHS for about $4 per kilogramme,

[Anonymous No.6117638]

>>6117547
What the fuck? Just thinking about eating an egg cooked on salt makes my tongue shrivel

[Anonymous No.6117651]

>>6117560
it is bullshit
worked for a company that distributed many bullshit health items and we had at least 3 different brands of this shit

[Anonymous No.6117691]

Cheap salt tastes salty. Expensive salt tastes salty. All salty.

[Anonymous No.6117698]

>>6117691
Then no reason to buy expensive salts.

[Anonymous No.6117753]

>>6117638
Cooking on a salt block is actually pretty awesome. I've had burgers off mine before.

>>6117691
>said the pleb who smokes and never tried other salts before

[Anonymous No.6117862]

>>6117698
My point exactly.

>>6117753
If salt is the primary source of flavour in your meal then you're doing something wrong.
Also, adding salt is cheating. A good chef will combine ingredients that have enough salt content, and the dish should be tasty on its own. Adding salt is like smoking cannabis. It starts with salt, which leads to more salt, then maybe a little pepper, and before you know it you're drowning in ketchup. Say no to salt.

> not even once

[Anonymous No.6117977]

>>6117691
you cant taste teh difference between table salt and pink salt? are you taste blind?

[Anonymous No.6118012]

My friend has some purple salt that tastes like straight up sulfur. It's so good but so confusing. Like rotten eggs pretty much.

[Anonymous No.6118026]

>>6117977
>are you taste blind?
I don't think so. I can still taste the cigarettes so that's something.

[Anonymous No.6118080]

>>6117512
Ok, so I swear by one particular brand, it makes shit taste almost sweet, and doesn't have a strong "Iodine" flavor.

Ive tried Himalayan pink salt, which just tasted like rock salt. I've tried charcoal salt, which has a interesting flavor but haven't quite found a use for it. We also have a smoked salt, again, interesting flavor, but strong. We found it goes well on fatty fish, but it doesn't do much for anything else.

Picture related, it goes on everything and you can taste the difference straight away.

[Anonymous No.6118084]

>>6117589
>Smoked sea salt, for example, can be a really nice compliment to some things.
Agreed. Every so often I stop by SaltWorks to pick up some different salts and the smoked stuff is by far my favourite. It's pricey, but a little bit of it goes a long way.

They've got some other good salts as well, but I hardly ever cook with salt and never use it as a condiment on anything other than popcorn so I don't bother with it. I've got a friend that swears by sel gris, though.

[Anonymous No.6118273]

Bigger difference than type is texture. Depending on the recipe you will need sea/coarse salt or ordinary granulated table salt.

[Anonymous No.6118277]

>>6117547
>pure pink salt
pure salt is white. pink salt is dirty.

[Anonymous No.6119824]

>>6117512
>There's no difference in the taste or anything.
Try pretty much any gourmet salt for a couple weeks, then go back to generic morton shit. There's a difference.

[Anonymous No.6119834]

>>6117862
I kind of agree.

I don't add salt to anything I cook but the foods I make also don't have very much salt in them.

[Anonymous No.6120405]

Has anyone else tried San Francisco Sea Salt? The "salty" flavor isn't as strong as regular table salt imo. Are sea salts typically like that?

[Anonymous No.6120410]

>>6119824
Not the question. Sure, you can make a comparison between "gourmet" salt and Morton's salt which contains iodine.

But how do "gourmet" salts compare to OTHER "gourmet" salts.

Answer the question, you stupid cocksucker. Fat loser.

[Anonymous No.6120416]

>>6120410
>Answer the question,

How are we supposed to do that when we can't taste the salts in question?

[Anonymous No.6120421]

>>6119824
NaCl is NaCl is NaCl, m8. the only difference is texture (table salt, fleur de sel, coarse sea salt, etc).

[Anonymous No.6120445]

>>6120421
>the only difference is texture

[Anonymous No.6120461]

>>6120445
you dumb or something? the mouth feel of fleur de sel is different from table salt.

obviously only matters when consumed as is. obviously not when used as seasoning during cooking.

[Anonymous No.6120464]

I only tried that expensive salt once, but it did make that guy's face taste pretty good.

[Anonymous No.6120473]

>>6120461
The point wasn't that the texture wasn't different. It is. Obviously.

But so is the taste between different types of gourmet salt, and you're a complete fucking pleb if you can't tell that.

[Anonymous No.6120474]

>>6120445

that is the difference though, the difference in texture is perceived as a difference in taste

[Anonymous No.6120479]

>>6120473
>oh boy this nacl tastes completely different from that other nacl!

no it doesn't. but texture influences how taste is perceived. that's the difference.

[Anonymous No.6120482]

>>6120474
>>6120479
>all minerals taste the same!

[Anonymous No.6120484]

>>6120482
it's not "minerals". it's one mineral. singular.

[Anonymous No.6120491]

>>6120484
Could you make it any clearer that you don't know what you're talking about?

That's like insisting that all water tastes the same because H20 = H20, no exceptions.

[Anonymous No.6120495]

>>6120491
h2o = h2o, no exceptions is true though. except we never actually taste pure h20. that's different with salt, most of it is pretty pure, regardless of texture. pink salt being one notable exception.

[Anonymous No.6120518]

>>6120495
A substantial number of gourmet salts aren't just pure NaCl, and have other minerals and impurities in them. It's not just about texture.

Are you seriously trying to claim that sel gris tastes the same as sanchal? How about you fucking try some first, before making stupid assumptions about how all gourmet salt tastes the same.

[Anonymous No.6120527]

>>6120518
i bet you hear the difference between v0 and 320 too.

[Anonymous No.6120656]

>>6117862
>Adding salt is like smoking cannabis. It starts with salt, which leads to more salt, then maybe a little pepper, and before you know it you're drowning in ketchup. Say no to salt.
This.

I think that chefs would be insulted if they saw someone drowning their creation in salt and ketchup.

[Anonymous No.6121100]

>>6117539
>The mark up in price
>The mark up in price
Go to ethnic food stores and you can buy big bags of this stuff for cheap.

[Anonymous No.6121115]

>>6120484
Pink salt has other minerals in it which changes the flavor slightly.

[Anonymous No.6121593]

>>6120518
>A substantial number of gourmet salts aren't just pure NaCl, and have other minerals and impurities in them. It's not just about texture.
This. Holy shit, are you people literally retarded? Pink/red salt is different because it's not just NaCl, but also Fe2+/Fe3+. Salts with high contents of sulfur are yellow, etc.. Did none of you finish elementary school?

[Anonymous No.6123247]

>>6121593
sauce??