Icelandic salt

The production of sea salt from sea water through evaporation in special ponds basically requires a warm climate - which is not the case in Iceland, Denmark or Norway. Alternatively, other methods of producing sea salt were developed, in which the sea water was heated and boiled in large boiling pans using firewood. However, this method was unable to establish itself in the long term in Iceland due to a lack of appropriate wood resources.

Later, people came up with the idea of ​​simply using the hot water that is naturally found in many places in Iceland thanks to the geothermal energy present there, instead of using the water heated over a wood fire.

Since the hot springs in the area around Reykjanes on the coast of Ísafjarðardjúp, one of the largest fjords in the Icelandic Westfjords, are particularly close to the sea, the Danish king came up with the idea of ​​setting up a salt works here in the 18th century Salt could be extracted from the seawater using the hot water on site.

The Danish king then brought professional salt makers from Norway with the appropriate equipment and wood to Iceland and had a salt factory built in Reykjanes. Once salt production got off to a successful start, the saltworks here produced around 80 tons of salt annually from 1773/4, although this was primarily intended for export. When the Danish state ran into financial difficulties in the late 1790s, salt production in Iceland was abandoned. However, the locals continued to use the salt works in Reykjanes for their own use until the end of the 19th century.

After this traditional art of salt production was forgotten in Iceland, the old craft has recently been rediscovered by young, committed Icelanders and brought to new heights. Sea salt has been produced in Reykjanes again for a few years now, and in neighboring Reykhólar a special company has been producing high-quality coarse sea salt since 2012.

This area in the Icelandic Westfjords - in addition to the plentiful hot springs here - also has the advantage today that it has some of the cleanest sea water you can imagine, because this is where the current of the Arctic Ocean meets the Icelandic coast the water is therefore still very clean.

During the entire manufacturing process, water at around 200 °F (100 °C)C is used from the local hot springs, so that this salt is produced exclusively with geothermal energy and is therefore climate-neutral and leaves no CO² footprint.

Blaberjasalt

First, the seawater is pumped into special boiling pans, which are then heated with the hot water until the brine contains a salt content of around 17 to 20%. The brine is then boiled until the white crystals form on the surface and slowly sink to the bottom of the pan. After cooking, the water is drained, the remaining salt is dried and then packaged.

Nowadays, various high-quality gourmet salts are produced in the Westfjords of Iceland, for example, in addition to the pure coarse-grained sea salt, there is also black lava salt, which is colored with activated carbon from Icelandic lava, licorice salt and salt with arctic thyme, but also birch smoke salt, which has a particularly smoky taste . Icelandic specialties also include blueberry and rhubarb salt.

There is of course the debate about which is “better” or “healthier”, table salt or sea salt. It is often claimed that sea salt is "not better, but simply more expensive" and that it is also unhealthier because sea salt simply contains more pollutants due to general environmental pollution, and the amounts of potassium, sulfates and Magnesium is at most bitter than normal table salt.

Nutritionally, sea salt, like other table salt, consists of a good 95% simply sodium chloride, so there is no difference in that respect. On the other hand, sea salt usually contains more “residual moisture” than other table salt, which means that, based on the kg price for the sodium chloride, it is actually more expensive than other salt. (Okay, and it's expensive as it is.)

However, I really like cooking with coarse-grained sea salt because it doesn't spread evenly and discreetly throughout the food, but rather forms small "flavor islands" that make the whole thing much more interesting for me. I also think you can feel the crystallization completely differently when frying. But that's certainly a matter of taste!


[Translated from here.]