Salt

Between Chennai (formerly known as Madras) and Pondy, salt is harvested from the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean. I’ve seen this in the South if France, too, and — as we sped by — the process seemed the same: capture sea water in a shallow, diked area (“salterns”); let it evaporate and –volia! — fields of snowy white salt.

With the right packaging, it could be sold at ridiculously high prices in gourmet stores, but the fancy sea salt trend doesn’t seem to have caught on here… Quite the opposite, it does bring to mind Ghandiji’s Salt March protest, the importance of salt to the food security of the country, and the necessity of this basic pantry staple in each household (especially where the poor live without access to reliable refrigeration).