Seasoning 101

Okay. Some of you will snicker. Others will roll their eyes.

It's because the featured item in this latest blog installment -- well, let's just say I fully expect to get called out for my "gourmunk" wannabe snobbiness.

But, hey, it's not like I'm talking about ridiculous $2 a gram Quebec foie gras, or even ridiculous-er $7 a gram white truffles from the Piedmont region of Italy. I mean, really! Who do you think I am?? (I'll be covering those items in future blogs.)

With today's particular item, I just really feel a need to extoll the virtues of this often pooh-poohed necessity in culinary preparation. I'm speaking of the prevalent kitchen staple: Salt.

When stocking a kitchen with the basics, the standard grocery shopping protocol usually calls for the requisite box of Windsor or Sifto brand table salt. Ho hum. Sure, that's fine and dandy. For a 50's diner maybe.

But we're in the uber-cosmopolitan 00's now, and to help elicit the maximum flavour from our foods, you have choices in your seasoning. You do NOT have to be a slave to the everyday, iodized supermarket variety salts. Free yourselves, y'all.

"But, Benjie, please get your ass off that high horse for a sec....we're talking about salt here, buddy boy! Salty is salty. Get a grip, yo!"

Fine, okay, I'll give you that: Salty is salty. But soy sauce is salty. And so is oyster sauce. But they certainly don't taste the same. And not all types of salt taste the same either. True, it's more subtle than the differences between soy sauce and oyster sauce. And true, I've made friends take the "Pepsi challenge" with a few varieties of cooking salts, resulting in some of them being unable to discern much between the types. (Philistine palettes if you ask me...hmph!)

But seriously, it you don't experiment yourself, then you'll have to take my word for it that, when cooking, different salts bring out the flavours of dishes in differing ways. Some punch up flavours by brightening them up (e.g. grey sea salt on roasted winter vegetables). While others coax out flavours in less aggressive ways (e.g. Hawaiian red salt in melted dark chocolate).

And although my roommate will swear by his oh so vairy Frainche "Fleur de Sel" from the marshy bogs of Camargue, France (and don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful salt), if I had to plunk down my cash for one tried-and-true, go-to salt to use when I'm dicking around my kitchen, then that cooking salt would have to be the reputable Maldon Sea Salt. Large, flaky crystals. Quality so refined from sea waters that - as they say - just a little does go a long way. Just feel those granules crumble between your fingers as you scatter them over the freshest of your ingredients...ahh, it's food porn at its most raunchy! (Yes, my apologies for that.)



But with glorious Maldon salt (along with perhaps four-plus years at a top culinary school) you'll finally be able to release your inner chef. Serving up meals with flavours you never dreamt possible in your lifetime. Angels will sing on high and doves will flock together with olive twigs in their beaks. Okay, fine, it's probably not quite the manna from heaven I'm hyping it up to be, but it's damn good stuff to season your cooking with.



But just one snobby cooking tip, if I may: When seasoning your dishes as you cook, do yourself a favour and add the salt by hand (as opposed to shaking it from a container). With just a little practice, the tactile experience will give you a much better feel for how much salt you should add to your culinary masterworks. Seriously. For real.


Dent in your wallet:
around $8-$10 for a 240g box
(yeah, I know, but it'll last you a long time!)

Ideal for:
poseur chefs; real actual chefs

Look for it at:
most schmancy food shoppes frequented by gourmands (such as Cheese Boutique or the St. Lawrence Market in T.O., probably Le Faubourg in Montreal)