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My family and I didn’t live the salt life, but we bobbed and dabbled in it for a week on our annual summer beach trip. I can still remember how it felt to be a little girl from the mountains, bouncing and soaking in the ocean, first in my doughnut-shaped swim ring that my dad blew up while I awaited breathlessly to get in the water, and later on tiptoes after another school year of swimming lessons made me bolder and taller. I was precociously aware and suitably awestruck that I was floating off the edge of an entire continent, and that, as I waded back to shore, I could plant one foot in North America and swish the other into the Atlantic.
All summer long, I sprinkled salt on nearly everything I gobbled up with glee: ice-cold watermelon, buttery corn on the cob, mayo-graced tomato sandwiches, eggs scrambled or deviled, crisp cucumbers on cottage cheese, ballpark peanuts, matinee popcorn, cookout burgers, and piping hot fries. To later learn that this salt might have come from the very sea in which I frolicked made me grin as though I’d been let in on not just a culinary secret, but a magic trick, too. (As a cook, I assure you that it’s both.) Salt-kissed summer breaks were how I developed my salt tooth, which has always outpaced my sweet one.
Salt-kissed summer breaks developed my salt tooth, which always outpaces my sweet one.
OK, I probably inherited some of that salt tooth as well. A love of judiciously yet unequivocally salted food runs in my family’s blood to the point that some might wonder how our blood runs at all. We stir salt into our cookpots and shake it onto our plates with deliberate vigor, not because we can’t make good food but because we can. No-nonsense seasoning ensures that all flavors, even the sweet ones, taste like upgraded versions of themselves. It gifts us the best possible bites — whether it’s a five-star restaurant dish or a ripe cantaloupe eaten as a porch swing picnic.
Recipes specify amounts of salt for reasons rooted in cooking chemistry, but “salt to taste” is a continuum, relying on tastebuds rather than teaspoons. Some of us carry salt with us, forearmed against blandness. I had salt in my purse before I carried keys in it. First were miniature navy blue Morton Salt canisters, about the size of a thimble. Joy Morton figured out how to process table salt so that each grain was pure white and uniform and poured easily. Before that, processed salt crystals came in sizes, shapes, colors, and tastes that reflected their sources around the world — from seawater, salt mines, or mineral-rich springs. Those types of free-form natural salt are back in style: Nowadays, I carry a little jar of flavorful sea salt that looks like crisp snowflakes.
A collection of various salts stands at the ready in my kitchen. That’s not just my salt tooth at work; it’s the cook in me. The right amount of salt — whatever our palate, recipe, or conscience deems that to be — is as crucial to deliciousness as any ingredient or technique. A pinch of salt and a sun-warmed tomato, just those two things, can make a momentary master chef.
Salt was once so prized that people used it as currency and wages. Now, it’s so commonplace that we find it anywhere, everywhere, from the ubiquitous shakers on our tabletops to the paper packets inside our cellophaned spork kits. Salt is as easy to take for granted as a sunny day at the beach, practically free, yet of great value.
photograph by Tim Robison
This recipe combines two of my favorite summertime delights: seafood and sandwiches. A quick brine ensures the shrimp are plump and flavorful. This will restore ocean freshness, no matter how far inland you might be.
Yield: 4 servings.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 to 1¼ pounds large (about 21/25 count) Succulent Brined Shrimp (recipe follows)
½ cup high-quality mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
A few large drops Texas Pete hot sauce
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 crusty sub rolls, split
Softened butter, for rolls
8 thick slices bacon, cooked until crisp
4 large, crunchy lettuce leaves cut into thin ribbons
8 thick slices vine-ripened tomato (see note)
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add oil. Once oil is warm, add shrimp and cook until opaque, about 2 minutes, stirring often.
Immediately transfer shrimp to a clean work surface to cool slightly. Cut them into large bite-size pieces.
In a bowl, stir together mayonnaise, basil, lemon zest, lemon juice, hot sauce, and pepper. Fold in shrimp. Taste for salt, but the shrimp should be well-seasoned from the brine.
Butter and toast sub rolls.
Divide shrimp mixture among the sub rolls. Top with bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Serve at once.
Tomato tip: Summertime tomatoes are unquestionably the tastiest, but they can also be the messiest. To enhance the flavor of the tomatoes while avoiding soggy bread, salt and drain the slices before assembling the sandwiches. Cover a wire rack with two layers of paper towels and rest it in a baking sheet to catch the drips. Arrange the sliced tomatoes in a single layer on the paper towels and sprinkle with kosher salt, about 1 teaspoon in all. Let stand for 15 minutes and then blot dry with fresh paper towels.
¼ cup kosher salt
¼ cup granulated white sugar
1 cup water
2 cups ice
1 to 1¼ pounds large shrimp (21/25 count), shelled and deveined (thawed if frozen)
In a large bowl, combine salt, sugar, and water, stirring until solids dissolve. Add ice. Immerse shrimp in brine and refrigerate for 20 minutes, but no longer or the shrimp will be too salty.
Drain the shrimp, rinsing thoroughly under cold running water. Pat dry with paper towels. Cook at once. — Sheri Castle
Jason Zombron, co-owner of Sea Love Sea Salt Co. in Wrightsville Beach, scrapes crystals left behind from evaporated seawater to package into salt blends. photograph by MALLORY CASH
photograph by MALLORY CASH
The elements along the southern part of our coastline create a “flaky, flavorful salt full of magnesium and all of these wonderful essential minerals,” says Sea Love Sea Salt co-owner Jeanette Philips, who runs the company with her husband, Jason Zombron. Using solar evaporation of seawater and herbs often from local farms, the pair combines resources from land and sea to create a variety of salt blends.
On Cape Hatteras, Brian and Shaena McMahon and their son Declan run the small solar oven farm that produces Hatteras Saltworks products. The Outer Banks location, 30 miles off the mainland, provides nutrient-rich, clean water at the intersection of the warm Gulf Stream and cool Labrador Current. This water makes salt with a taste unique to the Carolina coast.
Sold as coarse crystals straight from the ocean, refined pinching salts, or texturizing hair spray and body scrub, Atlantic Beach Sea Salt Co. offers natural salts harvested from waters off the coast of Atlantic Beach to enhance dinner or provide sea-inspired self-care.
Twice a year, Kristina Morando-Stewart’s grandmother would make their family’s salt blend with herbs grown on her porch. The recipe dates back four generations to northern Italy. “I had been making it for years before I actually started Non’s Pinching Salts, just for family and friends because
I enjoyed doing it,” Morando-Stewart says. Now, she sells pinching salts ranging from the smoky, pepper-spiced Tenebroso blend to an everything bagel seasoning.
— Caroline Horne
For decades, a remote piece of Currituck County has been a respite for wildlife. Now under the protection of conservationists, this land, the waters surrounding it, and the skies above will remain a constant in our coastal circle of life.
On North Carolina’s coast, boardwalks wind alongside our sounds, rivers, and beaches, reminding us that the journey is often just as delightful as the destination.
From Wanchese to Duck, these landmark businesses and the families who run them connect consumers with the daily catch.
As the sun sets at Grandfather Mountain, fireflies put on a magnificent show — for those willing to stop and pay attention.
