Salt (68 page)

GALETTE FINE

55 kg flour

30 kg sugar

20 kg butter

8 kg eggs

1k 200 salt

Mix the dough, let it rest a half an hour, fashion it into cookies and bake.

“The trick,” he said teasingly, “is always mixing in the right order.” But he refused to say what the correct order was. Clearly, the flour is last, because in baking, flour is always the last ingredient. The butter is probably mixed with the salt first. Jadeau salts his own butter with salt from the same Batz-sur-Mer producer of Guérande salt that his shop has been using since 1920.

Does he use the gray salt?

“No.”

Fleur de sel?

“No, that’s too expensive.”

He gets a Batz producer to wash the gray salt until it is white and then crush it fine. “I don’t think the gray salt is clean,” he said. “It has dirt in it. This salt I use you could get anywhere. But I am here so I get it here.”

In the past, this kind of fine, white salt was called in Celtic
holen gwenn
, white salt, and was rare and expensive, only for the best tables and the finest salted foods. The gray was the cheap everyday salt. The relative value of the white and gray salt is a question of supply, demand, and labor, but also culture, history, and the fashion of the times.

Why should salt that is washed be cheaper than salt with dirt? Fixing the true value of salt, one of earth’s most accessible commodities, has never been easy.

Other Books by Mark Kurlansky

The Basque History of the World
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry
A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny

The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories
(fiction)
The Cod’s Tale
(for children)

Acknowledgments

O
NE OF THE
remarkable experiences of journalism is that as you travel from place to place, people take the time to help you. I especially want to thank Shane Bernard for his research and helpfulness at Avery Island, Gildas Buron for his thoughtful assistance at the Musée Intercommunal des Marais Salants in Batz-sur-Mer, Stephen Fawkes for his help in Great Inagua, Andreu Galera for insights and guidance in Cardona, Cheng Jinfeng for his generous and good-humored assistance in Zigong, Antonio d’Ali for his hospitality in his Trapani saltworks, Marzio Dall’Acqua for his help at the archives in Parma, Professor Guo Zhengzhong of Beijing for sharing his vast knowledge of salt history and his beautiful calligraphy, Oded Harel for his help at the Dead Sea, Bo Masser and family for their hospitality and enthusiastic assistance in Sweden, Paul McIlhenny for his hospitality at Avery Island, Roy Moxham for giving me an early look at his wonderful book,
The Great Hedge of India
, Fred Plotkin for his help with Italian, Marcel Saule for his generous help in Saliesde-Béarn, Bryan Sheedy for his passionate look at Salt Cay, Peter Sherratt for his assistance in Cheshire, Jill Singleton for her help in San Francisco Bay, Laura Trombetta for her Chinese translation, the generous sharing of her vast knowledge, and her sense of fun and relentless curiosity as a travel companion, Marianne Vleeschhouwer and Anne Kupfer for their help with Dutch.

An overdue thank you to two institutions that make food history research possible in New York: to Nach Waxman and his magical bookstore, Kitchen Arts & Letters; and to the New York Public Library, whose staff has been helping me all of my reading life in that elegant stone-and-polished wood palace with underground vaults full of everything, including more than 1,000 books on salt.

A special thanks to my editor, Nancy Miller, for her craft and determination to make me my best, and to my agent, Charlotte Sheedy, for her good humor and wisdom. To George Gibson for his friendship and perfect publishing, and to Linda Johns for her belief in this and for not allowing me to talk myself out of it. Also thanks to Sarah Walker and Sasha Yazdgerdi for all their help. A special thanks to my brother Paul Kurlansky for his insights into chemistry, and to my brother Steven Kurlansky and sister Ellen Brown for their loving support. And a most special thanks to my beautiful wife, Marian Mass, for making me laugh, for making me think, and for her wondrous smile, bright enough to light planets.

Bibliography

BOOKS

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———.
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———.
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Food and Food History

Anonymous.
The New Family Receipt-Book: Containing 700 Truly Valuable Receipts in Various Branches of Domestic Economy Selected from the Works of British and Foreign Writers of Unquestionable Experience and Au- thority, and from the Attested Communications of Scientific Friends
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