Sel Gris (Gray Salt) Guerande - Fine

1.1 pound bag - France

The Guérande Peninsula, in the Breton region of Fance, is surrounded by water. It stretches out from the Atlantic Ocean (west) to the Brière Regional Nature Reserve (east), and from the river Vilaine (north) to the Loire estuary (south). The Guérande Peninsula overlooks two contrasting landscapes: the "Pays Blanc" (White Land), because of its salt marshes, and the "Pays Noir", with the Brière peat bog. The town's salt marshes have made it a world-class producer of salt, and it is the traditional source of both fleur de sel, a type of finishing salt, and gray salt, one of the healthiest tables salts there is.

For many centuries, salt was the regions main source of wealth, the trade reaching its peak between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries. Flemish, English and Dutch ships would call in at the port of Guerande to take on fresh supplies of salt before setting sail for ports in the far north.

The salterns of Guérande are a swamp of salt water about 1700 hectares in size. The current saltmarshes began before the 9th century and lasted for several centuries. Around the year 1500, the marshes reached 80% of the current surface. The latest were built around 1800. In the middle of the 19th century, a gradual decline started for different reasons : competition from a salt mines, lower consumption of salt as a product of conservation and improvement of transport by land and sea making more industrialized (read: lesser quality) salt cheaper and more suitable for industrial applications. Additionally, the salt of Guérande used to be traded throughout Brittany tax free until Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte decided to tax it resulting in the beginning of a decline of salt activity.

Untreated and unwashed, the sea salt of Guerande is naturally rich in mineral salts and trace elements. This makes it an exceptionally useful part of the diet. Most evaporation takes place during the sunniest months, June, July, and August, when the salt farmers continually rake their salt beds. Each day quantities of French gray salt, sel gris, settles out to the bottom of the ponds and is harvested with wooden scoops and wheel barrows - taking up traces of the gray silt of which the salt ponds are contructed - givein ght egray salt it characteristic color, and rich and balanced mineral qualities. This coarse untreated and unwashed salt is ground to create this fine gray salt.

It is used as a seasoning or added to aromatic herbs or vegetables. This finely ground gray salt brings out the flavor of grills, fish dishes and soups, giving you the genuine purity of natural sea salt. French gray salt is also a perfect table salt. And when articles talk about sea salt from Brittany and how healthy it is for you, this is the salt they are talking about.

THIS PRODUCT IS PACKAGED IN A FACILITY THAT ALSO HANDLES WHEAT FLOUR, SOY FLOUR, TREE NUTS, PEANUTS, CHOCOLATE (MILK), AND OTHER ALLERGENS