SpiceLines

You know about the latest volley in the salt wars, of course.

That would be Mayor Bloomberg’s assault on salt: a “voluntary” initiative urging restaurants and packaged food manufacturers to cut the sodium chloride in their food by 25 percent over the next 5 years—or else.

This delicious plan comes to New York from an admitted junk food lover who, reported The Times, “dumps salt on almost everything, even Saltine crackers.”

Speaking for the city’s outraged chefs, Momofuku’s David Chang retorted: “You need salt to draw the flavor out of food…. For this to be regulated is just stupid and foolish.”

This, of course, comes from the man who gave us Bo Ssam—an entire luscious pork butt, rubbed with a cup of coarse salt and some brown sugar, slow roasted for six hours to delectably fatty shreds, blasted with high heat to create a glistening caramelized crust, and eaten with all sorts of spicy-salty condiments—in short, a truly splendid dish with 2,360 mg of sodium per serving.

Perhaps this is the moment to cite a Mayo Clinic guideline: Healthy adults should consume no more than 2,400 mg of salt—less than a teaspoon—per day.

What’s a salt lover to do?

Since Mayo estimates that we get only 11 percent of our daily salt intake from cooking and sprinkling, maybe we want to get on the next plane for Portland, Oregon.

In Food & Wine’s March 2010 issue, “The Salt Hunter and His Exploratorium” profiles Mark Bitterman and his wife Jennifer, proprietors of The Meadow, a purveyor of artisanal salts from 23 countries. Bitterman has constructed an “apothecary-like salt wall” which will eventually hold up to 100 mostly finishing salts, including the intriguing Pangasian Star from the Philippines—“slightly moist, with a sweet minerally taste”—and Iburi Jio Cherry from Japan, “a smoked salt that somehow has a caramelly flavor,” just right for vanilla ice cream.

My kind of guy, entirely.

I’ll never have room for 100 salts, but at the moment I’m in love with 5 of the 19 I’ve stashed in the pantry. I still use Diamond Crystal kosher salt for everyday cooking, but it’s those lovely finishing salts that make my heart beat a little faster.

Here’s what I’m using right now:

1. White Maine sea salt harvested from the Gulf of Maine and evaporated in solar green houses. A crumbly, slightly moist salt that starts mellow but finishes with a sharp snap. Its my go-to salt when I want soft crystals that start to dissolve fast: It's nice for dipping raw veggies, like ripe cherry tomatoes, carrots or cauliflower; for sprinkling over roasted winter vegetables and pastas; for adding extra crunch to an endive and radiccio salad; for giving a little oomph to grilled steaks and pork chops. A great everyday finishing salt.

2. Rosy Alaea Sea Salt from Hawaii: Chunky medium crystals mixed with red Hawaiian clay; iron oxide gives the salt a dusty orangey-pink tint. Traditionally alaea salt is used in cleansing ceremonies and healing rituals, but its smooth, rounded flavor pairs well with fish and other seafood. I love to sprinkle it over roasted salmon and shrimp sautéed with vanilla and serrano peppers.

3. Smoked Mexican Sea Salt: There are lots of smoked salts around, but you can’t beat this one for adding a whiff of the campfire to Bison and Black Bean Chili. Stir the crunchy, nearly black crystals into the chili or any meaty stew near the end of the cooking process—5 to 10 minutes before you’re done—so the salt has time to dissolve and permeate the dish with its intensely smoky flavor. But be sparing: This is a powerful salt—too much will create an unpleasant harsh taste.

4. Tahitian Vanilla Sea Salt: White, flakey Halen Mon sea salt, harvested from the waters around the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, is mixed with sweetly floral Tahitian vanilla beans. This salt seductively whispers, “Chocolate love.” It’s voluptuous sprinkled over A16’s devastating Chocolate Budino Tartlets or your favorite brownies. I like to break a bar of Valrhona Guanaja 70% Cacao into chunks and sprinkle them with a little vanilla sea salt. The flakes are very large, so I usually crush them gently in a mortar and pestle before using.

5. Gilles Hervey Fleur de Sel: I’ve tried other fleurs de sel, but I keeping coming back to this exquisite hand-harvested sea salt from France’s Atlantic coast. On warm windy afternoons, artisan paludiers, or salt-rakers, carefully skim the “cream,” "a single day’s evaporation of the salt crust from the top of the salt ponds" near Guerande in Brittany. Some say these small, moist crystals, with the sweetly delicate taste of pure mineral-rich sea water, have the scent of violets. This is an elegant salt: Use it to bring out the naturally delicious flavor of, say, a sun-warmed ripe heirloom tomato or freshly caught whole fish, grilled over fresh herbs.