During our visit to Portugal, our hosts took us to the salt pans on the Atlantic coast, it was hear we saw and tasted the production of Fleur de Sel.
Salt, and in particular the flor de sal, was Portugal’s white gold and essential to many economic treaties.
The salt is farmed by drawing seawater through channels and sluices into a patchwork of man made ponds known as salt pans. The ponds are closely monitored and depending on evaporation levels and salt density sea-water is added and removed over a long period of time. Eventually over the summer months the water is allowed to evaporate, and as it does most of the salt precipitates out on the bottom of the marsh or pan. This salt is later collected either by hand-held rakes or machinery as ordinary sea salt.
Some salt crystals however float on the surface of the water, forming a delicate crust. This is fleur de sel and is probably the best salt you can ever have! It can only be harvested by hand, and in Portugal a tool known as a borboleta is used. It is easy to determine which salterns are using traditional methods, as these ponds are much smaller to enable the workers to reach both sides easily with their rakes and borboleta. They are also usually inaccessible to tourists and cameras alike, but a couple of years ago we did find ourselves on a path which took us past this saltern.