Fruit

Salt makes tart things taste sweeter (and, oddly, cuts the sweetness of sweet things to bring out their subtler flavors) and mellows the sharpness of alcohol. The salted rim of the margarita is iconic because it capitalizes on all the opportunities lurking within the sweet-tart-alcohol bite of the cocktail; because it is beautiful; and because it revives us with every sip. The salted rim allows margaritas to be served on the tart side, so this recipe calls for more fresh lime juice and less triple sec than is commonly recommended. As tempting as it may be to bring out the heavy guns and rim the cocktail with more massive flake salts, I often prefer the fine crystalline froth of Marlborough flakey. It gives a truly satisfying crunch, like the feeling of stepping on powdered snow—a welcome sensation when drinking a margarita in the waning heat of a late summer afternoon.

The true taste of a place is found in its little oddities, and northern India is no exception. Nowhere are the distinctive attitudes and sensibilities of a people better captured than in the lemonade of northern India. Jal jeera is Hindi for “cumin water,” but it’s the wild and unruly yet ultimately constructive influence of India’s famous, sulfuric kala namak salt that lends this drink its edge. It’s traditionally drunk before a meal, but any hot day provides a great excuse to duck into the shade, mix up a tall iced glass of jal jeera, and tilt your face up to the sun to offer a prayer to the sun god Surya.

Salting is a way. It’s the path you take. It lets you discover a passage through the brambles, defines the terrain ahead, sets you on a lost trail, and, toward the summit, reveals key ledges and handholds. The better your use of salt, the higher you can climb and the more enjoyable the ascent. And the view from up top is worth it. The Meadow Martini is a diamond-perfect expression of salt’s power to offer the clearest imaginable view of the most magical possible vista. Crushed Tasmanian pepperberries send blossoms of hydrangea crimson into the translucent liquid of the gin, unleashing extravagant botanical flavors. Tasmanian pepperberry (Tasmannia lanceolata) is sometimes used as a substitute for Szechuan pepper, though it harbors none of the heat and frankly bears no resemblance. If you can’t locate any, substitute a few petals of dried hibiscus or just enjoy your martini in its classic perfection, an arc of Shinkai Deep Sea salt as its only embellishment. Shinkai imparts to the lips the felicitous texture of confetti, and the unalloyed flavor of happiness itself.

The venerable Greyhound is made with vodka or gin and grapefruit juice, and if you salt that hound, you get a Salty Dog. So goes the logic. But logic is dull—or lonely. Vodka craves company. Its pure grain simplicity is receptive to a host of improvements that would wither under gin’s herbaceous glare. And who doesn’t love a peach, with all that it conjures—from climbing fruit trees to sipping Bellinis? And with the right salt—like a springwater fresh Bolivian Rose salt—the vodka and peach open up with a smiling opulence that quells the furor of even the surliest god.

Imagine strolling home along the long dusty road after a hard day in the fields. At the crossroads you encounter a gaggle of tow-haired youngsters sitting at a card table. “Sidecar, mister?” they shout. The sidecar is a lemonade drink for grown-ups. A touch of salt opens up the entire experience, makes it restorative. Citrus playing tag with sugar, chilled juice teeter-tottering with warming alcohol, the entire drink alloyed with salt’s wisdom and captured beautifully in a glass of coppery liquid.

Sauce is basically salt in liquid form, gussied up with any manner of delicious glutamates, lipids, acids, and aromatics. There are nuances, sure, but the nuances are, well, nuances. Sauces can be more than that. Mango salsa is an example of a sauce so succulent that it challenges the raison d’être of the food for which it was created. Tacos, empanadas, tortilla chips, hamburgers, pizza—all become mere delivery vehicles for the lush, tart, spicy salsa. All the more so when the salt is introduced as a distinctive ingredient in its own right. Confettied with onyx black or garnet red crystals of Hawaiian salt, this salsa brings a firecracker pop of festivity that celebrates saucing not just for flavor, but as visual and textural celebration of food. Use it atop anything from fried fish tacos to green salad to yogurt to steak.

Is it a gimmick, or is it a serious cooking technique? Is it both? Who cares? Preparing and serving chocolate fondue in a bowl of primordial pink salt is easier, makes a snazzier presentation, and tastes better than conventionally prepared chocolate fondue. Salt bowls, which weigh in excess of six pounds, provide phenomenal thermal stability. This makes it very difficult to overheat the bowl and burn the chocolate. Once heated to the desired temperature, the salt bowl stays warm, keeping the fondue beautifully liquid during its fleeting existence before it’s gobbled up. And the salt. Because salt isn’t soluble in fat, the chocolate itself just luxuriates in the bowl, doing nothing. It’s the touch of heavy cream that transmits a kiss of salt to the fondue’s liquid body. Try cherry, orange, or traditional Angostura-style bitters to vary the flavors

Don your chain mail and broadsword. Ancient food, harbinger of tragedy and regret, roast partridges spur thoughts of delicious violence, provoking a savage appetite spurred by rich flavors and primal aromas. Daedalus, who built the labyrinth that held the Minotaur, flung his brilliant disciple Perdrix off a roof, only to have him transformed into a partridge by the goddess Athena, who has a thing for geniuses. One of the oldest partridge recipes comes from the French, who would encrust foods in salt to protect them from the scorching heat of the oven. The guards of the Aigues-Mortes salt fields, had they survived being massacred by invading Burgundians, would surely have appreciated this dish. The Burgundians were eventually massacred as well, and their bodies buried in a tower filled with salt. Athena would have approved of their ingenuity, and of salt crusting in general, though it is doubtful that she would have approved of this choice of bird for the roasting.

Imagine running through the tessellated shadows of the forest with a mustard jar of just-caught pollywogs and a sharpened stick for a spear, scrambling up the levee and lunging into culverts, your dog baying ahead in the distance. You slip on a wet log, stumble, catch yourself on the mossy shoulder of a boulder, oblivious to the mud and moist lichen flecking your arms. You are lean, quick, alert, leaping streams and plunging through dense brush. Lungs filled with the crisp air, perspiration on your back, eyes wild with happiness—you are free, alive, home. The old hound nuzzles up to your hand as you mount the porch steps, your mother’s greeting at the screen door, the aroma of cherry pie on the windowsill, your life a storybook distilled in the sweet mirth of salt.

Whereas my second son was born without a volume control dial, my first son was born without an equalizer. The little one bellows and howls at the ceiling, pounds and slams on the floor. The big one rolls his eyes, giggles, and plays mind games, then lavishes you with smiles. Not surprisingly, their loves and fears and wants are nearly opposite, though not in the way you might expect. The big one, when he isn’t politicking, just wants to create elaborate dioramas of war and space travel. The little one, when he isn’t fighting, just wants to climb into your lap for a cuddle. The younger one loves to cook, the elder is a formidable epicurean. They are made from completely different machinery, as if one was crafted by a Swiss watchmaker, the other by a Tasmanian shaman. But they both love flambéed bananas with smoked salt. Cyprus hardwood smoked salt lends woody glints of bacon to the dish, while the salt’s unique massive crystals lend a perfect crunch. Either way, the dish has everything. Banana sugars caramelizing in hot butter, bourbon exploding into fire, and a globe of ice cream—the whole thing set into a smoky haze, like a carnival entering a battlefield.

They say we use only 10 percent of our brains. That assessment is immensely appealing. We are all potential supergeniuses with telekinetic and mind-reading powers, and could easily enjoy Heidegger or Joyce for light reading over coffee and donuts in the morning . . . if we only tried. But there is an easier way to experience the unbridled horsepower of our full consciousness: try roasted peaches in bourbon syrup with smoked salt. Your first bite will expand the boundaries of sensation separating your mouth from the rest of your body, and you’ll be feeling spiciness in the warmth of your hands and smokiness in the tingling of your toes. And by the third bite your mind will have moved on to peel the black backing off the edge of the universe, filling the unending space beyond with your pounding heart.

One of the great pleasures of salting lies in not salting. Salt cure your lemons beforehand, cook and assemble your ingredients, serve, and let the lemon’s super-salted flavors hop around the plate like Taskiouine dancers. The citrus and salt goad each other on in a warrior’s dance, all white tunics and turbans and powder horns, and in your mind ring the bells of camels and the beat of rawhide tambourines. Simmer chicken in diced preserved lemon, olives, and fresh coriander for a superb tagine. Make a compound butter of minced preserved lemon, ancho or espanola peppers, and cilantro to serve over pan-fried fish. Chop preserved lemon with parsley, dill, shallots, and olive oil for a relish to top anything from rack of lamb to a goat cheese tart. And cut a strip of rind to garnish a negroni cocktail.

The Hindus paint a red dot, or bindi, on their foreheads as an ancient form of ornamentation that also indicates a focal point of meditation: the third eye, the site of the bright inner flame that burns in our mind’s eye. People living in the warmer climates of Latin America wear a bindi of another sort, a cucumber slice stuck to their forehead to keep cool on a hot day. This practice has always fascinated me. The sure knowledge that as the afternoon wore on the wearer’s sweat would salt that cucumber also made me hungry. The crisp, acidic rush of tsukemono, or Japanese pickles, brings focus and refreshment as an accompaniment to grilled fish, rice dishes, and sashimi. It can also be eaten on its own in a meditative moment.

Lovage looks like a young celery branch with leaves, and in fact tastes like a slightly spicy celery. Most farmers’ markets have it in the spring and summer. Substitute a celery branch for the lovage stem in a pinch.

This is our take on a somewhat composed cheese dessert for Ssäm Bar.

This one is for the beet lovers out there. It’s also for the not beet lovers out there. I am not a beet lover, but this ganache is delightful.

Mascarpone cheese is a little fussy. It breaks really easily, so it is important here to make sure that both the lemon curd and the mascarpone are cold. Don’t even think about overmixing this!