No salt

Perhaps because of the attractive color and its exotic origin, Himalayan pink rock salt (mostly from Pakistan’s salt mines) is all the rage these days.

I have the salt in various grain sizes and packaging in my pantry. I grind the salt on my penoy-balut. The pink is barely discernible; you need flakes or larger grains if you want the hue to stand out on salted caramel.

As for the taste, it’s exactly like our ordinary table salt. But Himalayan pink is priced several times higher, starting at around $30 per half kilo.

Even more expensive is France’s fleur de sel. This is manually skimmed off with a sieve from a thin layer of salt that “blooms” in shallow pools of seawater along the French coast but mostly in Brittany, and only at certain times of the year.

I bought two brands of fleur de sel in an artisanal salt specialty shop in Paris. It does have an intense flavor that bursts in your mouth; it’s perfect for topping pricey desserts.

Still, my Tondo-bred peasant palate can settle any time for non-iodized Pinoy sea salt bought in our wet market as a satisfactory substitute. This is also my preferred salt for bread making; iodized salt is not good for pan de sal, the classic real bread of salt.

In fact, apart from this palengke sea salt and local iodized table salt for regular cooking, the only other salt that I find uniquely useful is Maldon sea salt from the UK, whose large flakes are ideal for certain food preparations.

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As for appearance and packaging, we have what I believe is the most unique in the world: the asin tibuok of Albuquerque town in Bohol.

Preparing asin tibuok – also called “dinosaur egg salt” because of its appearance – is a true labor of love. The process and the product should be preserved as a national cultural heritage, and asin tibuok production should be developed into a major tourist attraction in Albuquerque.

I’ve written about it in the past: coconut husks are soaked for several months in seawater. The husks are then dried in the sun, and then burned slowly over several days using hard woods. A coconut charcoal ash is produced. The activated charcoal is used to filter seawater, which is poured into clay pots and slowly roasted for a day. The salt, which forms into a dome like an ostrich egg, is then allowed to cool overnight.

To consume the salt, you crack the dome and take small chunks that you need. This salt has a distinctive earthy taste with smoky undertones, and a mild bouquet that reminds me a bit of fresh oysters.

Table salt in a shaker is more practical and user-friendly. But asin tibuok is a conversation piece and injects fun in a group meal, which can’t be said of ordinary table salt.

Asin tibuok deserves better marketing overseas, and a much higher price (its last listed price online was P1,200 per “dinosaur egg”). With its unique story and proper marketing, it can cost even more than fleur de sel.

It can compete with Korean “9X Bamboo purple salt” or jugyeom, said to be the most expensive salt in the world. For jugyeom, common sea salt is manually packed into stems of three-year-old bamboo, and then roasted in a kiln (pine wood is traditionally used) nine times at a high temperature of 800 degrees-plus Celsius, to remove impurities and allow bamboo oil to impart its health benefits.

The ninth and final roast is in a special kiln at 1,000 degrees C, melting both the salt and bamboo. When the stuff cools after several days, the result is a rock-like purple-hued chunk of salt. The entire process can take from 45 to 50 days.

Korean 9X purple bamboo salt costs around $100 for 250 grams (about 10 times more than Himalayan pink). Considering the labor of love that goes into producing asin tibuok, doesn’t it deserve a similar hefty price tag? But the makers need to properly market the product, and preserve their traditional (and now endangered) salt-making method.

The producers of asin tibuok cannot do that kind of marketing on their own.

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Agriculture players say domestic salt production began to plummet with the passage of Republic Act 8172, the Act for Salt Iodization Nationwide. Approved in December 1995, the so-called ASIN Law required all food-grade salt to be iodized. This was meant to address deficiencies in micronutrients particularly iodine, which hinder brain development and were seen as a pervasive problem in the Philippines.

Marginal salt producers, however, couldn’t afford to invest in iodization machines and raw materials or even obtain the knowhow to iodize their salt.

The iodization requirement could be the reason why non-iodized asin tibuok can no longer be sold locally. But why is Himalayan pink salt, which is not iodized, being sold here?

Today, agriculture officials and producers say we have to import up to 93 percent of our national salt requirements – about 550 million metric tons annually – mainly from Australia and China. This is way above the 15 percent that we needed to import in the 1990s.

Some salt producers, such as those in Pangasinan, are packaging their salt as artisanal. At the Legazpi Sunday market in Makati, a 250-gram pack costs P50. Online, Pangasinan sea salt is available for P130 a kilo. This is made by drying in the sun seawater on an irasan or clay-lined traditional salt bed – a method called iras intsik, for the Chinese who introduced it here.

Bitterman Salt Co. of Oregon in the US is selling “Pangasinan Star Fleur de Sel,” a.k.a. Ilocano Asin, for $71 for about 450 grams, and $9 for a taster pack of 25 g.

Such artisanal enterprises can become viable, but the production won’t meet the basic salt needs of the country. Domestic salt production urgently needs a boost. People need food-grade salt, the most basic condiment.

Also, common salt, according to agriculture officials, is needed as fertilizer by coconut growers. This affects all the products derived from coconuts. Every part of the coconut tree has commercial uses.

Last Aug. 12, the Department of Trade and Industry approved suggested retail prices of iodized rock salt at P23 per kilo, and iodized table salt at P29. The DTI says there is no salt shortage even if prices are higher. If this could be due to domestic production rather than imported salt, it would be really good news.

We have a local description of impoverishment: magdildil ng asin. The extremely poor subsist on meals of salt sprinkled on rice.

These days, the poor have to scrimp even on the salt.