Fleur de Sel is my favorite salt. Sprinkled over a chocolate mousse it incites intense gastronomical excitement. It tastes clean and fresh, like the ocean, and exudes an aroma of bright violets. Unfortunately, unlike most salt, it's not cheap. While you can spend as little as three dollars for three pounds of kosher salt, Fleur de Sel costs approximately 10 dollars for only 5 ounces. But, of course, there is no comparison when it comes to the enormous difference in taste.

The reason why Fleur de Sel is so expensive has to do with its superior quality. To understand the price we pay for Fleur de Sel, we need to comprehend the intricate process involved in collecting it. Fleur de Sel must be harvested by hand with great care, because it is not supposed to touch the coarse grey salt beneath the surface. It is delicately scraped off of the surface where it floats.

Where does it come from?
The salt enters shallow marshes, called œillets, off the coast of Brittany from the Atlantic ocean through an elaborate series of 10 winding waterways. But, before entering the marshes, Fleur de Sel enters a basin, called a vasière, where fish, eels, and other living oceanic organisms are cleared from the water. The complicated system of canals that lead to the œillets is crucial. Ocean water has roughly 27 grams of salt per liter, but, by the time the water ends up in the œillets, it's far saltier, containing 300 grams of salt per liter. Information on how Fleur de Sel is collected and the type you should buy can be found after the jump.
How is Fleur de Sel Harvested?
During the warm dry months (typically, the summer), Fleur de Sel is cautiously raked up with a lousse à de fleur, a tool designed to collect the salt without disturbing the tender crust. The job is done by specialists. Originally, it was done by women called paludiers.

What kind of Fleur de Sel should I buy?
It's true that there is Fleur de Sel from other parts of the world besides Brittany. You can find Fleur de Sel de Camargue from southern France, and you can even find some from Spain. I highly recommend that you purchase Fleur de Sel de Guérande. The tradition of collecting Fleur de Sel began in Guérande, in southern Brittany. It's likely that Fleur de Sel from other regions is mechanically harvested. I'm not stating that those others types are bad. On the contrary, I know that they are artisanal salts. But, the work involved in collecting Fleur de Sel de Guérande is more involved, and, in my opinion, produces the best Fleur de Sel.

Have you used this salt recently or tried dishes with it? If so, what were they and how did they taste?