Chef Craig Cormack is one busy guy. In between co-running Overture and Genot Restaurant he also lectures students. Somehow he’s found the time to pursue another passion – salt.

Not the restaurant but the glittering crystals that come in various different hues. From pink Peruvian rock salt to brown smoked Danish Viking salt, Craig has collected many types of unrefined salts from all over the world.

To showcase the fifth element and all its fantastic forms, he’s hosting salt-and-wine pairing evenings throughout the year. Expect quirky canapés such as, popcorn and volcanic Indian salt and an amuse bouche of anchovy toast escabesche, amongst others. Malu Lambert talks to Craig to find out what it’s all about.

Tell us about your salt-and-wine evenings.
To start, we serve canapés based on cooking with salt, paired with an arrival drink. This is followed by a tasting of six salts. I then chat to the guests about the history of salt and tell them a bit more about the subject. A five-course menu is then served. I introduce each dish just before it comes out, and explain the techniques that I’ve used, some of which are based on 2 000-year-old recipes. I try and show how the salts react with the dishes I’ve prepared, and I match them with some of the wines from the Hidden Valley Estate.

Why do you think salt is so topical?
Unrefined salt has become the new trend. The Europeans are definitely ahead of South Africans in this respect. In Europe, it’s completely normal to have a few different kinds of salt in your kitchen cupboard.

Where do you source your salts?
From all over! I also buy them directly from a distributor in Holland. I do business for Khoisan salt and they actually pay me in salt. The word “salary” actually comes from the Latin word salarium, which is thought to be linked to salt. Roman soldiers were paid in salt.

What inspired you?
My passion for salt has been a four-year journey. I currently have 36 salts from around the world. I hope to be the first to pair food with different salts, and to create dishes that have been designed to have a specific flavour and taste.

Where do you find your recipes?
I was inspired by an amazing book by Mark Kurlansky called Salt: A World History. All the recipes I use come from it. It’s about going back to a time before refrigeration when salt was used to preserve food. Although, if I had to make a recipe as it appears in the book, it would taste terrible, so I adjust the salt levels to make it more palatable.

Is salt good for you?
Unrefined salts used in moderation are good for you. But the salt that “runs freely” isn’t. Humans like everything to be pretty and shiny – processed. Refined salt goes through a bleaching process and a caking agent (sodium dioxide) is also added. It’s the chemicals that are added that make salt bad for you.

Tell us more about salt and wine pairing.
As with any food and wine pairing, it’s a personal thing. By that I mean that everyone has different pH levels in their mouths, so tastings are invariably subjective. In any pairing, I use the same method. I nose the wine, taste it for mouthfeel and weight, try the proposed food, and then retaste the wine. If the wine still tastes good, it’s a match. I apply the same philosophy with salt. I need to make sure that the wine doesn’t suffer, and that the salt doesn’t change the flavour profile of the wine. This is a challenge because salt dominates wine, which in turn makes wine textures richer, and sometimes smoother. Salt is both good and bad for wine – it can improve or destroy a wine. Salt can also cut through foods, sometimes giving wine a flat taste, making it lose its flavours and making it taste insipid. It can also accentuate tannins and alcohol. Sweet wines can also be paired very successfully with salt. Moderately sweet wines complement salt. Cabernet sauvignon stands up to salt well, as do young and acidic wines, and those with a bit of wood.

A reader and partner stand a chance of winning a spot at one of Craig’s salt-andwine pairing evenings later in the year. Enter here.