Google ‘salt idioms’, and you’ll find dozens, ranging from the familiar (‘salt of the earth’; ‘take it with a grain of…’) to the less so – anyone out there ‘salting the books’? (We don’t really want to know.)
Its place in our global lexicon shows what an everyday essential the white stuff is – and people increasingly want even their essentials to be ethical and, dare we say it, artisan.
New company the Yorkshire Salt Maiden is a real family affair, run by mum and dad Aniela and James Wood, with help from their three young daughters and sea dog Bella, a friendly black labrador with a penchant for sticking her tongue in the ear of visiting Yorkshire Life writers.
The couple met in Fiji where they were both volunteering for an environmental charity – marine business consultant James persuaded Portsmouth-born Aniela, an IT project manager, to move with him to Scarborough, where he’d trained on the highly regarded Hull University marine biology course.
But in 2021, a move back to his family’s home in Dringhoe, near Driffield, led them serendipitously to ethically sourced salt.
'We started with low impact principles, wanting a business with low food miles, minimal energy input and ethical packaging,” says Aniela. 'And, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my IT job, but you do end up sitting looking at a computer all day – having something else more physical to do is really satisfying.
'Also, if you’re going to bring three young girls to live somewhere as remote as this, you need to find them some way of earning a bit of pocket money,' chips in James. ''There aren’t many paper rounds around here!'
Aniela remembers the day a couple of years back when the family were on the beach, and one of her daughters asked what seemed at the time like an insignificant question: “Why is the sea salty?”
'Do you remember those diagrams you used to have at school, that showed the sea, and the heat of the sun, and the rain? We were having that conversation,' she says. 'And that’s where it all started.' The process is fairly straightforward, but very time consuming – Aniela describes it as a real labour of love.
It starts with seawater harvested at nearby Fraisthorpe beach, where the water quality is good – and they always double check it on the Environment Agency website before they head out to collect. James takes on the initial heavy lifting, donning armpit-skimming waders to head out into Bridlington Bay to fill, usually, six five-gallon canisters before heaving them up the cliffs.
Once back home the canisters are left to stand for a day or two so that the water can settle, any sand and other impurities sinking to the bottom. A 30-minute blast of UV light ensures the water is at its cleanest before it’s pumped out into wide, shallow trays in a polytunnel, where it naturally evaporates in just the heat of the sun, leaving behind drifts of snow-white salt crystals. These are turned twice a day during the evaporation process to help regulate the formation of the crystals and the formation of fine sea salt flakes.
This stage can take anything from four to seven days depending on the outside temperature, and the heat inside the polytunnel can be ferocious – it’s really only safe for Aniela and the girls to work in there in the early mornings and late evenings.
'There’s a little tipping point we’ve spotted,' says James. 'When the outside temperature is 15°C, it’s 50°C in there. Sometimes we open the door and steam comes billowing out!'
The day we visit Dringhoe just happens to be glorious, one of the hottest of the year so far, with the temperatures in the low twenties by early afternoon – Aniela willingly goes into the polytunnel to have her picture taken, but she can only take the heat for a few minutes, emerging for regular breathers.
Once the salt has reached the correct consistency and crystal size, it’s transferred to a finishing greenhouse, with much lower humidity, designed to remove as much moisture as possible.
It’s then transported to the house, Aniela favouring jars from a certain brand of French jam, where it’s sorted and graded, then measured and packaged, either in plastic resealable pinch pouches, designed to be refillable, or fully recyclable FSC-certified cardboard tubes with inner liners made from potato starch.
'And that’s it,' says Aniela. 'It’s quite simple, really: science, but definitely not rocket science!'
This labour-intensive process creates, on average, only sixty 70g packs of salt from those six heavy canisters of water – so just ten pouches per drum.
And the weather means they can only operate from spring to October. In a world where the word ‘artisan’ has become a bit of a cliché, Yorkshire Salt Maiden salt is a properly artisan product.
For more information, including where to buy: https://theyorkshiresaltmaiden.co.uk
Aniela is careful not to make any particular health claims for her salt, but points out that commercial table salt has added ingredients, albeit food-safe, to prevent clumping, and it’s more processed.
There are also trace minerals to be found in sea salt – and it just tastes better and has a more pleasing texture.
