Flavored salts: Dare to dip

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

We’ve seen flavored vinegars and flavored oils. An outfit called Saltistry (salt artistry, get it?) makes flavored salts. And not just the obvious flavors, such as herbs and spices. Preserved-lemon salt. Lavender gray salt (made with an unrefined sea salt). Truffle salt.

Last night it threw a public tasting at the Beverly Hills-adjacent Food Court L.A., and it was like a lot of tastings -- that is, a mob of people crowding around a buffet table and getting in each other’s way at the best item (that would be the tiny roasted peewee potatoes -- so small I thought at first they were olives -- which you were supposed to dip in truffle salt; excellent earthiness). At this one, people connected with the event also wandered around encouraging everybody to dip freely and not confine themselves to the recommended flavor combinations.

Personally, I found most of the flavor combinations, even the non-recommended ones, to be charming or at least plausible, except for cantaloupe and coconut black salt, and I suspect watermelon and truffle salt might not have worked so well either. The clementine slices with tangerine salt were very good (if kind of a no-brainer), but preserved-lemon salt also proved an excellent foil for the clementines.

After two times around the table and trying 18 different salts on fruits, candies (chocolates and salty caramels -- surprisingly good with the lavender salt), raw fish, flank steak and duck rillettes, my ears were ringing. But maybe that was the noise of the crowd.

So I headed for the bar. It was making margaritas (with lime-flavored flake salt), Salty Dogs (tangerine salt) and Bloody Marys (six-pepper salt). I’m sure they were interesting and all, but this was the only open bar I’ve ever seen where more people were lining up for plain spa water than for cocktails. We’d all had way more than a grain of salt.

-- Charles Perry