Photo by kevindooley on Flickr

Portfolio magazine's brief primer on salt breaks down some of its different characteristics like color and shape and how they affect flavor.

Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York presents a tray of 10 different salts to diners, while the restaurant Cyrus in Healdsburg, California, has both Maldon sea salt and pink Hawaiian salt on its tables for diners to experiment with. Salt-centric boutique the Meadow in Portland, Oregon, has 85 to 90 different salts at any given time, according to co-owner and self-described “selmelier” Mark Bitterman. “We’ve doubled in size every year since we started in 2003, but I think we’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg,” says Naomi Novotny, vice president of specialty salt purveyor SaltWorks

What's your favorite salt, and how many kinds of salt do you keep on hand in your kitchen?