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Salt & Pepper

  • Thread starter Thread starter rt49andellis
  • Start date Start date
Salt is grown from crystals. To begin growing salt, you need to find a salt mine (where lots of sea water has dried) or an ocean. The salt mine is easiest since the growing has been done. But if that's not nearby, then the easiest thing to do is to get some sea water, and dry it out. Before salt mines were built, salt was very valuable because of the amount of work needed to dry salt water and get the salt. And it was the main way to preserve foods. Nowadays we don't think anything of salt.

Pepper comes from a tropical vine. It's the berries, that are picked and dried. Whole pepper is the whole pepper berry dried, and ground pepper is the dried pepper berry that's been ground. It's native to India and other tropical regions, and is the most common seasoning in use.
 
The pepper info was very intresting. Thank you. The salt info made me go "DUH!! I'm an idiot" LOL
 
rt49andellis said:
The salt info made me go "DUH!! I'm an idiot" LOL
Click to expand...

I was trying to be funny. I'm glad it came across that way :) But really, salt used to be used as money because of what it took to dry sea water. Nowaways oil has made the mining of salt from deep mines cheap, and it's almost meaningless in price.
 
Yes, I think it's the only seasoning in the store that costs under $1... heck under $3. You'd think that since it's used so much it would cost alot more...but.... for once they're not screwing us on price just because we consume alot of it.
 
Wow that's so interesting about the prices of salt through the ages and how it is made! Is Sea Salt made the more traditional way and is that why it's more $$?
 
Yeah, Sea Salt used to come from collecting sea water and drying it in huge reflectors, which took a long time and a lot of reflectors. It was the original preservative for food, and was hard to produce so supply and demand kept the price up. I'm sure that these days it's produced by boiling the water off using oil, or natural gas as a heat source. It takes a long time to boil off a pot of water, so the cost is probably relative to how much the fuel costs, since sea water is free.

Which leads me to think that when I buy a loaf of bread for a dollar fifty at the grocery store, I'm probably paying $1.25 for the fuel and driver, $0.10 for the bag, and $0.15 for the bread. Basically, the bread is free. Could that be? If so, and thinking strangely, it would mean the a bakery is really nothing more than a delivery service that creates the products to deliver.
 
So does anyone know the difference in the salts? I have seen sea salt and table salts and get the difference there. But what about grey salt and kosher, what makes that difference?
 
DrPepper said:
Salt is grown from crystals. To begin growing salt, you need to find a salt mine (where lots of sea water has dried) or an ocean. The salt mine is easiest since the growing has been done. But if that's not nearby, then the easiest thing to do is to get some sea water, and dry it out. Before salt mines were built, salt was very valuable because of the amount of work needed to dry salt water and get the salt. And it was the main way to preserve foods. Nowadays we don't think anything of salt.

Pepper comes from a tropical vine. It's the berries, that are picked and dried. Whole pepper is the whole pepper berry dried, and ground pepper is the dried pepper berry that's been ground. It's native to India and other tropical regions, and is the most common seasoning in use.
Click to expand...

WOW I never knew this thanks for all the info very interresting.
 
DrPepper said:
Pepper comes from a tropical vine. It's the berries, that are picked and dried. Whole pepper is the whole pepper berry dried, and ground pepper is the dried pepper berry that's been ground. It's native to India and other tropical regions, and is the most common seasoning in use.
Click to expand...

Just want to add that in Chinese Cooking, we sometimes use white pepper, which is black peppercorn with the skin removed. Some say that white pepper tastes milder than black pepper.

White pepper is mainly used for aesthetic reasons, example when you do not want to see black flecks on your chicken, fish dish, rice congee or if you are making a light sauce.
 
Wow I hadnt even thought about where they come from. I guess I knew about the salt but I definately didnt know about the pepper!
 
yeah,

one of my favourite soup is the pork belly with the pepper corn.
it's a heaty soup, best served during the winter or the cold nights.
 
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