This posting is dedicated to Kim. Without her care and enthusiasm I probably wouldn’t have found this salt. She tells me late last year she traveled to Italy, to the little town that produces this fine product. I can only imagine …
Yay for salt !! Sure sure, most everyone needs to watch their sodium intake. And I catch nitwits telling me to “just remove the table salt from the table”. I casually sneer, “and which salt should I be removing? ” I don’t usually get a reply. Feh. Ya know, there’s more than one use for salt pal and most certainly more than one kind of salt.

Here are a pair of fine examples of traditional Sea Salt both a coarse grind and fine. The coarse grind is something I’ve set aside for doing more of marinating a whole chicken in salt for a few days (in the fridge of course).
The fine is awesome !!! It’s the same grind as standard Kosher Salt. Which is wonderful, one can get a sea salt and yet pinch it in as though it were Kosher. I’m sure there are others that do the same, but probably not for $1.99 per 1000 grams.
Kim said I could find it over in Berkeley at the Monterey Market on Hopkins. I knew exactly where it was (I grew up in that area), but I don’t shop there often if at all. That area of Berkeley has a small business district nestled by really nice 60+ year old homes, lots of huge leafy mature trees and maybe 200 billion people (it is busier than hell and tough to find parking). Monterey Market is in an older little building with a tiny little parking lot and tons of meandering people all filing through a narrow little opening that doubles as their front door. They’ve also got a substantial amount of produce out front in a semi-enclosed area. That being said, the quality of the products they stock is amazing to say the least. A standard large chain grocery store has maybe 1 or 2 kinds of tomatoes. Monterey has all of them (well okay, not all), well at least enough to satiate anyones appetite. Oh, and how cool is the Monterey Market? They don’t accept plastic, no credit cards, no debit cards. That’s cool, I like it. Screw the masses.
Here is an excerpt from the box:
It is the Saltworks of Trapani and Marsala, the crystal clear sea of the nature reserve in which the island of Mothya lies and an intense past of work and traditions that “Antica Salina” sea salt is born. Still produced following the ancient Phoenician methods, collected by hand and therefore retains all the properties of natural sea salt.
The only energy used to produce it is the combined action of the sun and the wind on the sea water.
This means that the natural sea salt “Antica Salina” maintains unaltered the presence of the trace elements found in sea water, such as magnesia, iodine and potassium which make it more soluble and more complete.
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I found my salt and noticed how inexpensive it was. Given that, I was able to grab as many boxes as I could safely get to the checkout. How exciting is that? I just love going out on an adventure and dragging my ‘kill’ home.
If you’re looking for a really high quality sea salt, in a decent sized grind, go see what Antica Salina has to offer.