My SO bought a bag of "natural sea salt" once. It smelled like rotten ocean which should have been enough of a warning but I used it in a dish anyway and that food went to waste. Tasted horrible.
I wouldn't buy from there again! I'm not sure what they did wrong (maybe they cheated by adding something to normal salt that later rotted?), but that's definitely not how it turns out at home. In most dishes you can't tell the difference between sea salt and table salt (assuming you've formed the same texture in both), and I use the ocean just because it's convenient.
I just assumed it was due to the same stuff that makes the ocean smell like that in certain places/seasons. Rotting organic matter. Maybe it was unfiltered or something like that.
Maybe it was just s bad batch. Anyway i use regular Maldon sea salt, it's perfect. It's like $2-3 or so for a pack that lasts for months. No need to fix what isn't broken.
My SO just has a habit of buying pointless crap some times.
That seems plausible. I definitely filter mine. You need at least a coarse filter for sand and whatnot, and various biofilms and whatnot are visibly problematic for culinary salt as you apply heat. I'm sure they're food-safe if you eat them fast enough that they don't rot, but a finer filter to get rid of that crap is prudent.
> no need to fix what isn't broken
Agreed. For most applications I portion out from a giant bag of salt from Costco or similar. The flaky sea salt is just a fun side-activity/hobby combined with a psychological aversion to paying market rates for flaky salt.
