sale / salt

The photo above shows the following kinds of salt: sel gris (grey sea salt, top left), sale grosso (coarse sea salt, right), sale fino (fine sea salt, bottom left).

Growing up in Italy, a store I visited often was the tabaccheria across the street from the apartment building where I lived. Vanessa of Italy in SF just published a post with a nice photo of the sign that marks the presence of such a quintessential Italian store. The sign tells you that in the store you can purchase: sali, tabacchi and valori bollati, i.e., salts, tobacco products, mail stamps, stamps for documents and stamped paper sheets. The last two articles are necessary in Italy to make bureaucracy work (this is a long story, which I may one day tell you to make you laugh — if you are Italian, though, it is no laughable matter).

Sale grosso is what my mother adds to boiling water to cook pasta and sale fino is what she uses to season food. That is the simple world in which I grew up. To be honest, there is another kind of salt, salgemma (rock salt), but I don't think my mother used it, so I don't. Sea salt is harvested in saline (salt works). The two white salts in the photo were harvested in Sicily, in the province of Trapani (a city located on the top left tip of the triangular island).

The language corner — The word salario (salary) has its root in the allowance paid to Roman soldiers to buy salt. A food lacking salt and/or flavor is described as insipido.

The history corner — In 1540, my home town of Perugia fought a war against the Pope called Guerra del Sale. Forced to purchase salt from the papal state's salt works at a high price, people tried to limit their consumption. Bread without salt — the famous pane sciapo — is a type of bread still enjoyed today, whose flavor surprises visitors.

Sel gris (unprocesses sea salt) and other so-called gourmet salts are described on this page. When I visited the San Francisco Fancy Food Show last January, I saw an incredible array of flavored salts. One of them caught my fancy: vanilla salt. I will talk about it in a future post. The only flavored salt I have ever bought is matcha salt, which I purchased a while ago (together with the grey salt) from the company where I get my loose leaf tea, and which I have been using mostly to decorate and flavor Lavash crackers.

---

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post: 

sale

or launch the sale  audio file [mp3].

 

Comments

[Susan]

Salt, cigarettes and stamps sound like bread-and-butter items. Fun and informative post, Simona. I look forward to your use of vanilla salt...sounds luscious.

[Laura]

Venice had huge Magazzini del Sale, or salt warehouses, and exchanged salt for gold.

I never heard of Guerra del Sale, thanks for the history lesson.

Can't live without salt.

[mia]

Hi Simona!

very interesting post! funny thing I was thinking of posting myself about salt these days..:) little do we realise how these original unudulterated salts are so magnificent in flavor aswell as health wise! very inspiring,Grazie.

[Ivy]

I have read two more posts on salt today but it is always interesting to learn new things.

[Roz]

What an informative and educational post! Thanks! bella

[Simona Carini]

Thanks, Susan. I need a decent photo of the dish I have been making with vanilla salt and then I will write my post.

Ciao Laura, you are welcome. Exchanging salt fro gold: now, that says something about the value of salt.

Ciao Mia. I must admit, salt is one of those things I took for granted. I think it is good to think about how valuable they actually are. I hope you'll write about salt.

Wow, Ivy, it sounds like there were three people on the same wavelength: interesting.

Thanks, Bella: I am glad you enjoyed the post.

[Jann]

This was so interesting. I love these different salts and what they do to ordinary foods!

[Simona Carini]

Thanks, Jann. I do too.

[Paz]

Very interesting! I love the idea about the vanilla salt. ;-)

paz

[Lisa]

I had heard that the root of salary had to do with salt; so interesting. Being a salt lover, I can see why it has been considered so valuable! I want to try grey salt some time. Michael Chiarello (of Food Network fame) is always talking about it, grey salt, grey salt, grey salt -- so I feel I'm really missing out on something.

Love the photo of the tabaccheria.

[Simona Carini]

Hi Paz. It is, indeed, kind of neat. I'll write more about it soon.

Hi Lisa. Salt was used also to preserve food, so it was really important. I like the big crystals of coarse salt and grey salt has an interesting color and smell. I'll talk more about tabaccheria, as I have a couple of funny stories pertaining that store.