MODERN SOUTHERN SALT FARMS
All salt is sea salt collected from ocean water or
mined from salt deposits left behind. The depos-its
are found on mountains, on desert flats or in
underground caverns, and each has different char-acteristics
and flavor profiles influenced by mineral
makeup, age, compression, and the surrounding
fauna and flora all reflecting the terroir. As food
continues to trend toward local, sustainable and
artisan-made, more and more American gourmet
salt producers are seeking out the old tradition of
salt harvesting.
About a seven-hour drive northwest from coastal
North Carolina, an intrepid road-tripper can find
J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works, nestled in the Kanawha
River Valley in West Virginia. The owners, Nancy
Bruns and Lewis Payne, are siblings and seventh-generation
salt makers. They harvest small-batch
finishing salt from the ancient Iapetus Ocean that
lies trapped 300 feet beneath the mountains of
Appalachia. An underground brine aquifer extracts
the water from a well into a holding tank, where
the moisture is evaporated naturally using the sun
and mountain breezes. The resulting delicate crys-tals
are then gathered using wooden rakes.
Locals Amanda and Dave Jacobs discovered that
the fast-moving, clean Atlantic Ocean water around
Wrightsville Beach makes for delicious-tasting salt,
and formed the Sea Love Sea Salt Co. As a testa-ment
to the product, several North Carolina chefs
are using their salt. Chef Travis Myers of Willow’s
Bistro in Winston-Salem described the salt as
“snowflakes of the sea,” delicate in weight and pow-erful
in flavor.
Brian and Shaena McMahon started Hatteras
Saltworks in Buxton, on Hatteras Island. Their
unique location offers a pristine source of water due
to the Labrador Current meeting the Gulf Stream
right where they collect seawater. Chef Craig
Readman of Heart Restaurant in Duck, uses their
smoked pecan salt in a grilled pineapple margarita;
and chef Dan Lewis, owner of Coastal Provisions
in Southern Shores, pairs fresh Outer Banks oysters
with their salt.
Today’s more tactile, hands-on approach to cook-ing,
using authentic products, has created more
attention on salt and how to use it to build flavor.
get your
creativity
going
It’s not too early to start shooting for
Wrightsville Beach Magazine’s
Second AnnuAl
photo
contest
Entries limited to photos taken
between January 1 and December 31, 2019
74
WBM march 2019