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02 Apr 04 - 05:14 PM (#1153125) Subject: BS: Culinary question - salt From: TheBigPinkLad Anybody heard of Lueneburg salt? I have a recipe for mustard that calls for it. I know there's a city in Germany where it used to be made/processed, but is it like Kosher salt or fine salt or flaked salt or ...?? |
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02 Apr 04 - 05:37 PM (#1153150) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Stilly River Sage Attic salt? ha! |
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02 Apr 04 - 07:33 PM (#1153231) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: The Fooles Troupe Most salt is similar - there is a difference between "sea salt" and "rock salt" but most people wouldn't know in a blind tasting test. "Rock Salt" is just old dried sea bed. There CAN be a slight chemical differences in the proportions of the different mix of chemicals depending on where and how the dry product is manufactured. Sea water is fairly constant in it's proportions of chemicals, but salt made from underground water will vary, from the different proportions of the chemicals dissolved in its path underground. "Table salt" however has added silica (sand) to keep it dry and free flowing. "Cooking Salt" doesn't, and often absorbs moisture from the air. Most claims about 'needing' a particular salt are just pretension, or advertising! :-) But "saltpetre" is a different chemical! Robin |
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02 Apr 04 - 10:22 PM (#1153298) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: michaelr Lueneburg salt is made from underground water. There's a huge "salt hedge" there which they keep spraying with the water -- it's encrusted with salt as if with ice. For the purpose of your recipe, I'd say skip the Germany trip and use regular salt -- you'll likely not know the difference. Cheers, Michael |
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03 Apr 04 - 06:22 AM (#1153460) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: GUEST,harlowpoet I want to know why the packet of salt in my cupboard has a use by date |
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03 Apr 04 - 05:10 PM (#1153736) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Liz the Squeak To stop the granulated salt in your shaker going damp and sticking, put a couple of grains of rice in with it. LTS Provider of todays' useful information. |
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03 Apr 04 - 05:20 PM (#1153742) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Peace The 'use by' date is there so you will, and then you will buy more. |
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03 Apr 04 - 07:55 PM (#1153826) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Rapparee NaCl, sodium chloride, is NaCl whether it comes from the ground, the sea, a laboratory, or outer space. It's the processing (e.g., flaked) or addtional minerals that change it. Ditto for other chemical compounds, including (but not limited to) vitamins. Actually, saltpeter is KNO3, potassium nitrate. It doesn't do what you think it does when it's put into the mashed potatoes, but it IS a diuretic. It's also an oxidizer, which is why it's used to make black powder (NOT modern "gunpowders", which are nitrocellulose) like Dan'l Boone and Davy Crockett used to shoot b'ars. A close relative is sodium nitrate, which is sometimes used in meats such as hot dogs -- which gives rise to the scenario "Give me the money or I'll light this hot dog and blow us all to hell!" |
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03 Apr 04 - 09:25 PM (#1153862) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Blackcatter Boy is didn't take much for this discussion to wind up talking about blowing wieners. . . . |
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04 Apr 04 - 08:40 AM (#1154075) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: The Fooles Troupe Actually, salt from the sea (and even from disolved underground sources - as in the often too salty - even for stock - in Aussie Artesian Bore water) can contain many more chemical salts than just pure NaCl. These "additions" are doubtless what the claims about 'salts for cooking/table use' having differing tastes are allegedly based on. Some other 'salts' exist - "Epsom Salts" - Magnesium Suplhate (mostly): "Saltpetre" - as above, and a few others, including aluminum ones, also carbonates such as calcium carbonate (chalk. limestone). None of these are useful as edible table/cooking salt - some may even be poisonous. "Spa waters" can contain a widely varying mixture of 'salts' - the so called "bottled waters" often are no different that the water you may find in your domestic tap. All natural occurring water - with the exception of freshly fallen rain - contains dissolved salts of one type or another. And as for "Organic Salt" - oh, my ribs hurt with laughter - salt is an INORGANIC chemical.... Robin |
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04 Apr 04 - 09:12 AM (#1154086) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Blackcatter There's also a difference in the way salt is ground for use. There is a big difference between table salt, kosher salt, rock salt, etc. I use a particular brand of sea salt - not so much for it's flavor, but for the fairly course grind. It's particualrly nice on salads. Kosher salt is a VERY course grind and is wonderful in some situations as well. Cooking with salt, though usually negates the course grind thing, however, since it typically will "melt" with heated liquids. |
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04 Apr 04 - 10:33 AM (#1154115) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Rapparee Heck, salt (NaCl, hereinafter declared to be "salt") dissolves in the water and 'most other liquids you'd use for cooking (but it's insoluble in oil). What is nice about salt is, that according to the Material Safety Data Sheets, it's not explosive. Sand (silicon dioxide) isn't used to make table salt run free -- magnesium carbonate has been used for that since 1911. SiO2 is, however, used for other things that might surprise you. Read the labels. Did you know that hydric acid is found in water throughout the world? |
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04 Apr 04 - 08:53 PM (#1154460) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: The Fooles Troupe "All natural occurring water - with the exception of freshly fallen rain - contains dissolved salts of one type or another." Well, actually, there was a documentary which claimed that part of the reason for the salt probelem in much of inland Australia was not just the past submersion of the land under the sea, but that rain evaporated from the sea contains traces of salt - over millions of years this builds up. Not an inorganic chemist with enough background for this - I was taught that this was unlikely as the water effectively "distilled" - but am always willing to take on new facts - anyone more experienced in this field care to comment? Robin |
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04 Apr 04 - 10:51 PM (#1154513) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Rapparee Seems unlikely to me, too. But then, I'm not a chemist either, and I don't know enough of Australian geology to know about the plate tectonics there. But I'd suspect rising landforms, not rain. |
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05 Apr 04 - 04:54 AM (#1154647) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Wilfried Schaum Lüneburger Salz was a salt of extreme purity and for centuries exclusively used around the Baltic sea for conserving fish. From the beginnings on it was constantly mined. The production was stopped at the end of the second millennium A.D. If it must be a fine German salt you may use Bad Reichenhaller Salz instead which is mined in the Alps. But any fine grained salt will do, I think. Wilfried |
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05 Apr 04 - 05:00 AM (#1154652) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Wilfried Schaum Just to correct michaelr's information: This salt was not made from underground (mineral) water, but from subterranean stone salt. But the process of mining uses a lot of water to transport the salt: the mine is flooded, the salt dissolves, and the salty water is pumped to the surface. Exposing the water to the wind reduces the water percentage. Finally the water is cooked away and a fine grained salt remains. So it is still done in Bad Reichenhall where I have visited the mines. Wilfried |
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05 Apr 04 - 10:02 AM (#1154831) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: GUEST,MMario I suppose that technically water vapour that evaporates from the sea has no dissolved minerals - but a lot of water enters the air from spray - and THAT has salt content. Just park your car near the shore and you will see!. |
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05 Apr 04 - 10:49 AM (#1154868) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Pied Piper In Chemistry the term salt is used to describe the ionic compounds produced when Metals and Acids react together. 2Na + 2HCl = 2NaCl + H2 2Na + H2SO4 = Na2SO4 H2 2Na + 2HNO3 = 2NaNO3 PP |
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05 Apr 04 - 11:56 AM (#1154929) Subject: RE: BS: Culinary question - salt From: Dave Bryant Just beat me to it, Pied Piper. Any compound consisting of a metallic base and an acid radical formed from a non-metallic element(ie Chloride, Sulphate, Nitrate, Carbonate, Phosphate etc) is a salt - there are a vast number of them possible. In actual fact either side of a salt could be another compound that acts like a metal (eg amonia) or non-metal (eg many "organic chemistry" compounds like the acetatate radical) - so tecnically you could have an "organic salt" Salt in a culinary sense usually means Sodium Chloride although this will usually contain other salts such as those of iodine etc. Salty is one of the "prime" tastes so it figures importantly in flavouring. Potassium Chloride, which tastes very much the same as the Sodium version, is often used by people with heart problems, because it does not tend to raise the blood preasure in the same way. |