Kosher salt or sea salt? Which one belongs in your kitchen, and does it really matter? Mark Kurlansky, in Salt: A World History, calls salt "the only rock we eat," highlighting its role in shaping ...

It might look pretty, but a pinch of this stuff will cost you. 100 grams of pink Himalayan salt can cost $5 to $8, up to 20 times more than generic table salt. Ouch. But why is it so expensive?

As McGee describes it, sea salt is tended, harvested, and minimally processed over time. Some unrefined sea salts, like sel gris from France, retain tiny amounts of algae, clay and bacteria ...