Sorry for the unexpected question. What you have at home salt? Can’t remember the name and the place where it was produced?
This is a question which I will ask in the first place during lectures and cooking seminars.
People are divided into two categories of people: not showing interest in that answer, bowed his head to the side, “Oh, what I got was salt? Like, with the red cap”, and those who know all the details and said: “rock salt pink color that I bought in Okinawa and called…”. The vast majority of it — disinterested people.
After 1997, it was abolished the state monopoly, restricting and controlling the production and sale of salt in Japan began to produce and import refined and table salt, which is characterized by a high content of sodium.
Rocked several salt booms, and now in Japan, there are about four thousand species of salt. Everywhere, there are stores that specialize in salt. In supermarkets the shelves stacked with different types of salt. Large food companies produce foods and sweets, which use particular types of salt.
Extends the view that the right to choose salt is a — okay, but there are still many people who don’t attach much importance, treating salt as something self-evident.
Salt — the reason for the tastiness
Perhaps you think that you can not ignore salt; you can use any of them, and the taste will not change, but you are mistaken. It seems that most people are not familiar with the fact that a simple choice of salt can affect what a regular meal would be prepared that it will be tastier and more interesting.
How to combine a variety of food and alcohol, so combined salt and various products.
Among the basic seasonings (sugar, salt, vinegar, soy sauce, miso) salt has a very ancient history. It applies since, as soon as people began to hunt. Salt is the basis of all bases. In addition, in contrast to the sweet and sour there is no product that could replace salt.
Moreover, salt is inextricably connected with the process of fermentation and maturation. Without salt it is impossible to make soy sauce, miso, or various fermented foods. Even the world famous taste of “umami” cannot be achieved without a certain amount of salt. As one famous Chinese, the “salt head 100 dishes, the alcohol — cure 100 diseases”. Salt is a key person, who manages the taste of the food (although it is not a person).
Salt changes the taste of the dish
The main reason I was so interested in salt, is that when changing the salt changes the taste of the dish.
For example, take beef. If you want your steak cooked and salting it with different varieties of salt, depending on salt is shown, or, on the contrary, it takes the sweetness of fat, the meat becomes juicier or drier.
The dish is prepared with the same products and the same way, but his taste is absolutely changed only because of the salt! It’s very interesting! From this day in our family to the table always served a few varieties of salt.
I wanted to share this simple way with many people, so from that day I began to try different varieties of salt not only at work but at home. It can even be called a salt lab.
Sometimes I even tried ten types of salt temporay squid. The results I share with my clients.
Once one of the clients to ask me to choose salt for barbecue. I offered him several types of salt. A few days later he came to my shop to thank me: “Because salt cheap meat tastes better. Amazed that different types of salts change the taste of the meat. We had so much fun!”
After that I decided to spread this idea all over the world.
A huge number of touching stories
You cannot lose sight of the ideas and history of the salt producers.
As I noted above, in Japan, salt was controlled by state monopoly. In 1971 it was completely forbidden to produce salt in the traditional way. Only seven companies were allowed to produce and sell salt with high sodium content.
There was a movement for the revival of traditional methods of salt production. Thanks to repeated negotiations with the authorities failed to achieve the liberalization of production and sale.
Some manufacturers, working at the time, continue to produce salt today. Striking in their passion and desire to revive the natural salt.
For example, the company “Amasia” known throughout Japan. At a time when it was allowed to produce only salt with high sodium content, the intelligentsia, who believed that these measures will lead to a crisis in the health and production of Japanese salt, whose history goes back 1,200 years, consumers and former salt producers organized a movement for the revival of natural salt.
They led educational activities across the country. In the end they managed to collect about 50 thousands signatures. Thanks to negotiations with the government permission was obtained for the production of processed salt (table salt which is made from imported salt produced from natural brine evaporation).
Thanks to the enthusiasm and activities of these people we now have the opportunity to enjoy different varieties of salt.
In addition, new companies that appeared on the market after the liberalization, also treat their work with great zeal.
They all went different ways: someone was doing a completely different business and decided to try to produce salt, someone started from scratch and was hooked. Each variety of salt has its own history, and this history makes the salt taste even better.
Try to touch the world of salt, which sounds familiar, but which you did not know. Your diet will certainly become richer and tastier.
