Last week when I guest blogged over at Epicurious, I wrote about Brittany, France, and fleur de sel. As I wrote about it, I realized I owned some fleur de sel but hadn't opened it. And I am here to tell you now that I was a fool! This is the best salt I've ever tasted, and I should know. I eat a lot of salt. In fact, I'm kind of a salt addict, and so really I am over the moon about my new "discovery."
What's lovely about fleur de sel is that its crystals are various sizes, so some dissolve upon contact with whatever it is you're eating (in my case tomatoes and soft boiled eggs, not at the same time) while other, larger crystals remain intact. So you get a nice crunch when you bite. But not the annoying, overly aggressive salty crunch from a large chunk of sea or kosher salt. This is milder, it crunches and imparts a lovely salinity, then dissolves. I am on the verge of becoming the kind of person I always thought was ridiculous: someone who travels with her own personal salt supply.
Amazon sells Le Saunier de Camargue salt that I have (which is from the South of France), along with other salts from Hawaii and Brittany. Oh fleur de sel, how did I live so long without you?!