Salt of the Sea

Okinawa has many unique products and customs and believe it or not, salt is one of them.  Masu (salt) is valuable to Okinawans not only as a seasoning, but also as a protection from evil and harm.  I found out that when Okinawans return home after a funeral or other Buddhist ceremony, they will lick a little salt and sprinkle salt on their head and shoulders before entering the house. When buying a new car, the owner will sprinkle a little Awamori and salt on the vehicle to assure safe driving. (They might need to do this a little more based on the number of accidents I've seen!)  When moving house, Okinawans carry masu and miso (the base for miso soup) into the house before anything else, at high tide. It is common for people to carry salt with them in a small bag as they go about, and an Okinawan will certainly have some salt in his or her car.

With the importance of salt in their lives, and given that they live on an island surrounded by salty seas, it is no wonder that there are some really good salt made on Okinawa.  I once read that a salt made on one of the surrounding smaller islands is one of the top salts in the world (as deemed by culinary experts far better than I, because salt to me is salt.)

Anyways, I took the family on a little excursion to make our own salt yesterday.  There is a place I had heard about and since it was a fairly blecky day, I was ready for a diversion.  The place for all my Okinawan friends is called Gala Salt Factory and it included a series of buildings that demonstrated the salt making process.  This included an eco-friendly condensation tower where the sun aids in evaporating the water, the brewing center where the water is boiled in a special large pan over a roaring fire to evaporate the water,

 and finally the solar crystallization house, where the salt is put into the containers that are made of the characteristic Okinawan red roof tiles to dry by the sun.  There was also a salt museum, salt tasting (the kids liked this - salts from all over the world),

salt rice cracker bakery, ice cream parlor featuring such flavors as - you guessed it - salt and salt caramel (as well as green tea, black sesame and soybean flour?) 

The culmination was an open air pavilion where you could make your own salt by boiling extremely concentrated (by 7 times) seawater over a hibachi stove until you ended up with a very fine, VERY salty, sea salt.  Couldn't be fresher! 

The kids really enjoyed it and it was a good opportunity to show them where we get salt from (other than the grocery store.)  Of course, in the Japanese way, our homemade salt was then packaged in a cute little Okinawan pot and beautifully wrapped to go home with us.

Cannon picking out our salt pot.

After visiting the Salt Factory, we wondered across the road and down onto a cool little beach with a stone jetty.  I would like to go back to that beach when the sun was out as I'm sure the water would truly be an amazing site.