The Next Gourmet Item: Salt

Like wine and chocolate, salt is fetishized by region, and the snootier salts sell for as much as $50 a kilogram. There's gray salt, red salt, French salt, Spanish salt, Italian salt, Portuguese salt, salt with algae, salt mixed with herbs, even smoked salt.

Such a wide variety was the norm up until the 20th century, when the U.S....

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