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.
Like many gourmands with a sweet tooth I'm strangely drawn toward candies that mix salt and sugar. I assume the reason that some crave what at first seems like an odd combination is because both components satisfy primal nutritional urges that are hardwired into our brains.
The
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