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Tasting, Check One

My wife calls me a food snob, which in many ways I am. I like plenty of junk food too, but as I’ve gotten older, my tastes have gotten more refined. “Snooty Ham,” is what the wife calls anything but Virginia Ham, and she takes great pleasure in busting my chops.

I’m more of an enthusiast than an elitest but there are some things that I’ve grown so attached to, it is hard a culinary life without them. First up, salt. I’ve traditionally used kosher salt for just about everything but over the past few years have experimented with a bunch of different sea salts, especially fleur de sel.

Then I saw the light: Maldon Salt

It has become my favorite finishing salt or table salt, easy to manipulate. The texture is wonderful and the flavor is sharp. Yeah, it is pricey, but well worth trying.

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8 comments

1 jlindy   ~  Feb 2, 2010 2:41 pm

Maldon sea salt is the best. SO crunchy that I often drop pinches of it into my mouth just to enjoy the texture.

2 Alex Belth   ~  Feb 2, 2010 3:30 pm

...dude, me too!

3 Diane Firstman   ~  Feb 2, 2010 6:35 pm

"Snooty Ham" ... didn't he play for the Phillies in the '40s? :-)

As for Maldon ... gonna have to check it out. I assume its sold in Whole Foods?

4 RIYank   ~  Feb 2, 2010 8:59 pm

Interesting -- I've never bought it, but I'm pretty sure there was a box of Maldon in a flat I once rented -- is it English? If that's what I'm thinking of, it really was good and in any case I'm going to go buy some.

I usually have Kosher salt around the house for everyday use, plus a box of the cheap stuff for cooking. (I read that article you linked, Alex, and I frankly do not believe that anybody can taste the difference among the various kinds when they're used in tomato sauce. I suspect that they used different amounts of salt in the sauce, or that the results are just random noise. Obviously NuSalt is a different thing entirely.)

5 RIYank   ~  Feb 2, 2010 9:08 pm

Yes, Maldon salt is English (as I would have known if I'd actually finished the Slate article).
Now I have to find out where in Rhode Island I can buy it. (We do have Whole Foods here, lots of them in fact.)

6 Dimelo   ~  Feb 2, 2010 11:04 pm

You do love yourself some sal.

7 Cliff Corcoran   ~  Feb 3, 2010 12:40 am

Okay, I get it, I'm not saying I don't get it, but I'd consider anyone who has a preferred type of salt to be a food snob.

Then again, I'm a human garbage can. I eat like a goat. The only reason I ever consider something other than the fastest, easiest, yummiest (not necessarily tastiest) thing is the fear of an early death. So what do I know.

8 Chyll Will   ~  Feb 3, 2010 11:53 am

I have a reputation for being very fussy, which is a little different than being a snob (though my film producing partner would beg to differ). I have a short list of things I eat a lot of, and it would take a trained negotiator to make me try something else. I particularly identify with George Carlin when it comes to food...

"I don't like that, Ma... it don't like right. Did you make that? I'll bet it didn't look like that in the cookbook. I don't like it and I bet if I ate it, I would like it even less."

"And how do you know you don't like it if you've never even tried it?"

"It came to me in a dream!"

>;)

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