But decent salt, as I explained to Ms. P., is all I really need and the only ingredient I can t do without. I had no idea what kind of supplies we would forage from the local grocery store, but the contents of my trusty test tube would turn it all into a simple yet tasty meal. Ms. P. was skeptical at first about my devotion to fancy gourmet salt, but she changed her mind after taking a cooking class that stressed the same principle. Her family could taste the difference, and now they are all salt converts. After a long season of dull abstinence and no-salt substitutes, salt has turned into the designer bottled water of the new millennium.
Salt is no longer simply a seasoning but a trendy new condiment.
Upscale supermarkets sell pricy jars of hand-harvested fleur de sel from the northern coast of France. Salt is turning up in grinders like fresh peppercorns, and author Michele Anna Jordan has written an entire cookbook devoted to salt and pepper, complete with salt-tasting notes. Talk about salt of the Earth. A bed of rock salt absorbs the fats and makes food wonderfully juicy and flavorful, without being very salty. The casserole should be wide enough to hold all of the seafood and vegetables in one layer.