Ancient Appalachian Ocean and Carolina Bays

January 15, 2018 1:55 PM

Making salt from an ancient ocean. Making sense of the Carolina Bays.
posted by MovableBookLady (10 comments total)

People pretending they can discern the difference in salt by taste in a finished dish must stop. Such a cliche to claim the minerality somehow improves the final dish. Shape? Yes, Trace elements measured in ppm? No. You cannot taste it, nor can you discern a difference large enough to prefer one salt to another.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:17 PM on January 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile, in Charleston SC
posted by BWA at 2:38 PM on January 15, 2018

formed more than 420 million years ago and hails from the extinct Iapetus Ocean, a body of water that predates the Atlantic

just, like, hella nifty? Yes.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 2:41 PM on January 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

People pretending they can discern the difference in salt by taste in a finished dish must stop.

It depends. For the more extreme cases, like black salt (kala namak), the other minerals are as strongly flavored as the NaCl and can be very noticeable in a finished dish. Freshly evaporated sea salts from different oceans… not so much.
posted by musicinmybrain at 6:26 PM on January 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Freshly evaporated sea salts from different oceans… not so much.

Vendors who claim you can tell the difference surely just have something to sel.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:30 PM on January 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

I’m not seeing where the Carolina Bays are made sense of. What am I missing?
posted by sjswitzer at 7:50 PM on January 15, 2018

sjswitzer, I should have put a question mark but I liked the symmetry. Maybe you'll make sense of them. They're kind of fascinating, aren't they?
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:03 PM on January 15, 2018

Also see my neighbor, Saltville, Virginia.
posted by maggieb at 10:37 PM on January 16, 2018

Was there supposed to be a second link for the Carolina bays sentence?
posted by tavella at 12:22 AM on January 17, 2018

Yes, there WAS supposed to be a link on the Carolina Bays!!! Cannot believe I forgot it!!!!

Making sense of Carolina Bays

Thanks for catching it, tavella. And sjswitzer, now you know why it wasn't making sense.
posted by MovableBookLady at 5:24 PM on January 17, 2018