I usually keep uniodized table salt, kosher salt, and sea salt in my kitchen but lately I've been getting a bit saltier than usual, thanks to a number of friends. Food stylist Karen Shinto, for example, is crazy for French Carmague fleur de sel and British Maldon. She buys them wholesale and gave me several packages. When I went on a Korean market tour with Hyunjoo Albrecht earlier this year, she told me to buy Korean salt that had been processed in bamboo; it was a fine as sand and intensely salty. Heidi Swanson recently gifted me a bag of specialty salt acquired during her trip to Japan. I've been buying various salts at Whole Foods and checking the bulk bins at health food stores too.
Playing around with all the salts has been fun -- there are varying flavors, textures, and colors -- but the one pictured above has thrown me for a loop. I just got it in the mail from salt expert Mark Bitterman, co-owner of The Meadow in Portland, Oregon. A self-described 'selmelier,' Mark is one of the country's leading salt sellers. He loves to delve into the chemistry, history, and culinary functions of salt. One of the salts that he's investigating is called Vietnamese Pearl. It’s a super white salt from the motherland that’s an artisanal product. Mark acquired it from a stateside distributor but doesn’t have any information on it. He says that old Vietnamese women come into The Meadow -- a retail store specializing in salt, chocolate, wine, and flowers -- and go ga-ga over the salt. His Vietnamese is bit rusty (okay, nonexistent) so he hasn’t been able to chat with them to obtain background information on the salt. Mark asked for my assistance so I’m checking all my resources – including you!
Here’s a close-up of one of the larger chunks of the Vietnamese Pearl salt. It’s big for salt, about ⅓ of an inch in diameter.
It has a lovely, crystalline structure that’s rectangular in shape. The white sheen – like that of perfect teeth -- gives off a pearly quality. Texturally, the salt feels like large pieces of chipped porcelain, though you can bite down and chomp on it. The flavor is clean and light with bright levels of saltiness. I ate a chunk and it didn’t make me wince.
At first, I thought Mark had been duped by some wily Vietnamese person who'd sold him the stuff from the giant plastic tubs of sea salt sold at Vietnamese markets. I happened to have a tub of that Vietnamese sea salt and did a side-by-side tasting. The one from the Vietnamese markets is super duper salty and when you suck on it, it becomes clear. Mark's Vietnamese Pearl is more delicate in flavor and retains its opaque quality after I wet it. Both have similar Kryptonite-like structures. So they are perhaps related but definitely processed differently.
Do you know what Vietnamese Pearl salt is? If you do, where is it made? How is it made? What gives it the special structure and shape? What do people do with it? What is its name in Vietnamese?
Salt is a precious commodity, and in fact, it once was used as currency. Roman soldiers were paid in salt and when slaves were sold, salt was used as payment. Maybe we can prove that Vietnam is worth its weight in salt!
wayne wong says
Can't help sherlokking the pearl salt, Andrea, but perhaps, since your quest is on because of this Bitterman guy, maybe this is an opportunity to ask: is he the same Mark Bitterman who palled around Spain with Mario Batali, Gwyneth Paltrow and that lucious Spanish brunette in a recent PBS series? If so, before you give him the info he seeks, Andrea, please ask why he, with his dour-sour-personna that sucked joy and life out of each episode when he appeared, was made part of that otherwise fun and engaging ride through Spain other than to say little and eat lots? Oh. Just 'cause Batali likes him as a straight man? Hmph --- politics rules even in culinary circles.
Andrea Nguyen says
Wayne, you be thinking of Mark Bittman. Mark Bitterman is not the same person. Sorry to disappoint you. Actually, Bitterman has made jokes about taking on a false persona of Bittman.
Boy, you really have it out for Bittman. He's the master of miminal cooking, has a NY Times column called "The Minimalist Cook." He also loves to put what I consider too much fish sauce in his Viet-inspired food. And, I'm a walking salt lick!
Dennis M Reed says
is this salt readily available? where?
just a note "Moui Bien" definitely reminds me of the Spanish "Muy Bien"!
Diane says
Wow - that is totally bizarre! I haven't gotten on the salt bandwagon. I have just kosher salt in my house. Oh, and fish sauce of course that acts as salt for so many of my Thai/Viet dishes. I don't quite get/trust the whole gourmet salt trend, but this salt I find really intriguing. What on earth would it be used for? Pickling? Grilling? I am baffled and very interested in hearing what you find out about it.
Andrea Nguyen says
Dennis -- you can order the salt from The Meadow in OR. Just click on the link in the post.
Diane -- I hear you about the gourmet salt and agree that if you're starting out with cooking Viet, concentrate on getting good fish sauce. I develop and test my recipes using uniodized table salt because it's actually akin to what's used in Vietnam. Plus, isn't it enough to inspire people to seek out good fish sauce?
Gary Allen says
We visited the Camargue salt works several years ago -- vast flat evaporating ponds, pale pink because of some kind of algae that can only live in intensely salty water, immense mountains of fleur de sel, and squadrons of tiny dragon flies.
I have no idea what,exactly, there is about French salt that appeals to tiny dragon flies -- but the stuff definitely appeals to ME.
Hilde says
Sorry. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
I am from Scotland and also now am reading in English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "Due straight rem is muslim."
With love :-), Hilde.
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marlon says
It’s a super white salt from the motherland that’s an artisanal product.