Maldon Salt from Essex England
Traditional Hand Harvested Natural Sea Salt Still Produced Today
Aug 26, 2009
Maldon in Essex has been a centre of quality sea salt production for centuries thanks to its unique salt marshes and climate. This delicious salt is renowned by food lovers for its unique flavor and texture, famously used to form a salt crust around cooking fish to add flavor, as well as in general cookery and as a table salt.
How is Maldon Salt Made?
The river Blackwater in Essex, Eastern England naturally yields particularly salty water thanks to spring tides encountering salt that has already been dried on the salt marsh banks. At Maldon, this salty water is drawn into the salt works, left to settle to removed sediment, and then boiled in evaporation pans over many hours.
During this evaporation process any impurities that rise to the surface, known as frothy lees, are removed to ensure the purity of the end product. The salt crystals that begin to form in the concentrated brine are drawn off into bins to drain before being fully dried in a hopper to produce Maldon Salt crystals.
Characteristics of Maldon Sea Salt
Maldon Sea Salt is entirely natural and unrefined, unlike much “sea salt” found in food stores. It has a more complex flavor than refined salt, and contains a wider range of minerals. The crystals have an unusual angular shape, and a light texture beloved of its many fans.
Described variously as tasting of the sea and having a sweetness absent in refined table salts, Maldon salt adds real depth of flavor, as well as simply saltiness, to a wide range of savory dishes. Maldon salt is dryer, and has lighter crystal structure than solar evaporated Sel de Guerande produced on the Atlantic coast of Brittany, France. The flavors of these two salts, while both excellent, are somewhat distinct.
Climate and Sea Salt Production
England is often considered to have a grey and rainy climate, and while this reputation has some justification, the region of East Anglia which includes Maldon in the county of Essex is the sunniest region of the country. The relatively dry, sunny conditions at Maldon are the explanation behind the unusually salty water in the river Blackwater used to make Maldon Salt.
Despite these sunny conditions it is not possible to produce salt by solar evaporation alone at Maldon, the drying process is carried out under cover in heated pans. Solar evaporation of salt is only possible further south on the Atlantic coast of mainland Europe, including in France and Portugal.
Sources:
The Maldon Crystal Salt Company
Salt a World History by Mark Kurlansky a remarkable book which offers a fascinating insight into the significance of salt through the ages.
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