Specialty Food Magazine

November 2012

“In a time of ingredient-driven cuisine, people are looking for quality ingredients that make their dishes pop. They are turning to artisan salts, rediscovering something authentic and real that has been overlooked for years,” says selmelier Mark Bitterman, author of Salted, A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral and owner of The Meadow, a specialty shop of salts, chocolates, flowers and bitters with locations in Portland, Ore., and New York. “The resurgence of artisan salts is no longer subtle; it is becoming mind-blowing.”

Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern

April 2013

Andrew Zimmern visits Portland and discovers The Meadow and our Sal de Gusano. Also known as gusano rojo or chinicuil, gusano is a larva that feeds on maguey and agave plants. It is great as an all-purpose seasoning salt for proteins like eggs and steak. Also try rimming a sundae cup with Sal de Gusano to serve tuna ceviche.

The Amateur Gourmet

December 2012

The first salt that I tried was perhaps the most shocking: Kala Namak from India. The flavor is immediately intense–reminiscent of Indian food or cumin–and I’ll admit, I thought it was some kind of spice blend when I first tried it. But reading about it online, I discovered that the aroma occurs naturally because of its sulfur content. Wikipedia likens it to “rotten eggs” which isn’t particularly appealing; I’d liken it more to how cumin smells a little bit like body odor? But in a good sort of way?

Food and Wine

August 2012

What is salt? Chemists would say it’s sodium chloride, but why does it come in so many shapes and sizes? Mark Bitterman’s salt obsession began in France more than 25 years ago, when he met Michelin-starred chefs who traveled with their own precious supply. Along with his wife, Jennifer, Bitterman now owns a store called The Meadow, with branches in Portland, OR, and New York City that sell salts from all over the world. Many are tracked down by Bitterman or custom-made, like his house fleur de sel.

In two other articles, Mark talks about How to Season with Salt and he names the six sins against salt.

Portlandia and GQ at The Meadow

March 2013

Portlandia stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein taste some salt and chocolate with Mark Bitterman.

Rowley's Whiskey Forge

September 2012

Writer Matthew Rowley, author of , discovers our bitters tasting table at the New York store: "The Meadow's way around shoppers' potential unfamiliarity with brands is to offer a tasting table where one bottle of every bitters in stock is open. Drinkers who want to compare brands of celery, old fashioned, orange, or other bitters are welcome to do so."

• Mix Magazine
  September 2012

I went to The Meadow in search of the perfect salt for eggs. A clerk handed me a black salt from India called kala namak. I opened the jar and inhaled a whiff of sulfur. I bought it on faith, used it on scrambled eggs the next day, and retired my regular salt shaker, overcome by the urge to sprinkle kala namak on everything. Tofu? Check. Vegetables — yes, especially sauteed padron peppers, which seem to have been made for it. In India, kala namak is used in fruit chaat, a fruit salad sold on street corners. Salt is an inexpensive indulgence — at least kala namak is. Buy a small bottle and see what foods you can subtly transform.

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• Cooking Up A Story
  July 2012

To describe Mark Bitterman as an artisanal salt evangelist is the equivalent of describing the sun as a bright object in the sky. Bitterman’s book, Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, is a 300 page hardcover tome that is considered an authoritative, and comprehensive guide to the world of artisan salt.

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• Simple Kitchen with Missy Maki
  June 2012

Mrs. Maki interviews Mark at AM 860. They talk about Portland's food culture, the origins of the word "Selmelier", how to salt a salad, and much more. You can listen to Mrs. Maki every Sunday at 9am.

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• Local Palate
  May/June 2012

“Please pass the salt!” We all know that classic phrase, usually uttered with a certain urgency. All primed for that great first bite, always the best bite, only to fall flat, the flavor still trapped inside waiting to be released with a pinch of the powerhouse of flavor; salt. What is the big deal with salt? It’s just sodium chloride, isn’t it? Little white grains that make our food taste better right?”…..”Don’t know where to begin? We asked salt connoisseur and author Mark Bitterman to suggest an essential salt “starter kit.”

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• Marie Claire
  June 2012

Marie Claire says shopping at The Meadow as a "must-do" while you're visiting Portland. They also recommend D Street Noshery's food carts on SE Division and the Bella Organic Farm on Savie Island.

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• Baltimore Post-Examiner
  June 2012

Visiting The Meadow was an unexpected and rather mind blowing treat. I hadn’t heard of the artisanal salt, bitters, chocolate, flower and vermouth store before — clearly due to a lack of reading on my part because after visiting I spent some time on the Internet researching this wondrous place and its well-earned reputation for amazing products. When I walked into this spot I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of salts and dark chocolates lining the walls — we’re talking hundreds of examples of each.

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• O: The Oprah Magazine
  April 2012

It's a time-honored truth that salt is a cook's best tool, but not all varieties are created equal - a lucky few provide crackly final touches to everything from broiled fish to fresh fruit. We asked Mark Bitterman, author of Salted, to walk us through three of his favorite finishing salts.

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• The Kitchn
  April 2012

We are often quick to complain long and loud about bad customer service experiences. But what about great experiences? Sometimes a company just goes above and beyond in service — whether that is seen in correcting a mistake, offering special education and resources to customers, or just being all-round nice people. What are your stories of amazing customer service from kitchen shops and brands? Other kitchen shops simply go above and beyond in education and resources for their customers. Mark Bitterman loves to teach customers about salt at his shop in Portland.

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• Chow.com
  February 2012

For a chocolate lover, walking into The Meadow in Manhattan's West Village is a bit like walking into a cathedral—one that also functions as a methadone clinic. Bars and bars of gorgeous, painstakingly crafted chocolate line the shelves, quietly demanding both reverence and the total abandonment of reason and self-restraint.The intoxicating hybrid is the work of Mark Bitterman and Jennifer Turner Bitterman , who opened their first location of The Meadow in Portland, Oregon, in 2006. Four years later, they launched a second store in New York City. Their shops feature over 300 varieties of chocolate bars from around the world, with a particular emphasis on dark chocolate.

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• Imbibe
  March 2012

Salt is as old as civilization itself. Precious for its role in preserving and flavoring foods, it carved the spice routes and was traded as crystallized currency in Roman times. Today we have our pick of gourmet salts from around the world, and while it's long been embraced at the dinner table, bartenders_ including a growing number in New York- are looking to the age-old seasongin as a cocktail ingredient...Many New Yorkers are finding inspiration at The Meadow, a specialty salt show with locations in New York's West Village and in Portland, Oregon.

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• Houston Press
  February 2012

If you are lucky, you may find two or three types of salt in your local grocery store (and I am not talking about flavored salts) which range between iodized, kosher and sea. These are BORING and wholly lacking of the attention salt deserves. Consider Bolivian Rose, Cyprus Black Diamond, Bengal Blue, Bali Rama Pyramid, Himalayan Pink, Korean Amethyst Bamboo, Hawaiian Black Lava, Chinese Jade Sands, Italian Ittica d'Or, Australian Murray River Flake -- the list goes on and on. Each one of these has a separate and distinct flavor, shape, texture and color difference. There is as much taste difference, shape difference, texture difference and color difference in salt as there ever was in pepper.

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• Sunset Magazine
  March 2012

At the lofty-rustic Meadow, one wall is lined with hundreds of hard to find chocolate bars, while another has floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with every kind of salt you can imagine- chunky white flakes, rosy pink blocks, dark charcoal grains. Vases of lush flowers and a thoughtful collection of wines and bitters round out the mix.

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• Evansville Courier - Finishing Salts
  March 2012

And, of course, it makes things taste good. Yet these days, salt is being used for so much more than simply enhancing the flavors of a dish. Trendy cooks are using unusual salts with interesting color, crystal structure or special flavors to add an upscale touch to special dishes — a sprinkle of deep brick-red Hawaiian clay salt on a scoop of lemon sorbet, for example ... or a fiery chipotle-strawberry margarita with the glass rimmed in black lava salt. Exquisite.

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• Hand Picked Nation- Worth His Salt
  February 2012

If you’re gonna talk about salt with anyone, Mark Bitterman, owner of The Meadow and author of Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral (Ten Speed Press), should be at the very top of your list. He is knowledgeable, to be sure, but also brings a passion and excitement to an item that everyone uses and few wholly understand.

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• Rachael Ray Magazine- Mineral Maniac
  November 2011

SALT Mover & Shaker Mineral maniac Mark Bitterman swears every food has a perfect salt. He would know: He has more than 300 varieties. Mark Bitterman was a 20-year-old kid touring Europe on a motorcycle when he ate the meal that would change his life. At a humble truck-stop diner in France, he ordered a steak. "There was this amazing crunch and texture, and the flavors were exploding on my tongue and evolving with every bite," he recollects.

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• Portland Food and Drink
  December 2011 - The Meadow

Q. The Meadow opened in 2006, a little shop nestled into the vibrant fabric of N. Mississippi Ave. Tucked away between an array of other businesses, you may notice it only for the bright colors of the flowers for sale in front. But besides the flora, The Meadow carries one of the largest selections of bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the country – they have in the neighborhood of 300 different bars. They also carry an amazing 140 plus types of bitters, up from a dozen when the store first opened.

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• Sacramento Bee
  November 2011

Exploring The Wonders of Salt If you're superstitious, tossing some salt over your left shoulder is supposed to bring you luck. But if you're serious about cooking and want to elevate your performance in the kitchen, you'll want to do some much more serious chucking and hurling. Reach into your pantry. Fetch the Morton's iodized salt you use to fill your salt shakers. Corral the kosher salt, too, the stuff that signaled you were something of a foodie. Now give them the big heave-ho – right into the trash.

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• Find.Eat.Drink
  November 2011 - The Meadow

Q. In your two stores in Portland and New York, you sell a range of products from salt to flowers to chocolate to cocktail bitters to wine. How did you end up with that eclectic combination under one roof? A. It absolutely just built itself around us. Flowers are something that my wife and I have always been really passionate about. Wherever you live that’s civilized, flowers are an integral part of your daily life. They are what beautify and connect you to nature. We’ve always loved flowers, so we knew we needed to have a flower shop.Salt was the inevitable -- over the last twenty years, I had collected a lot of salt. It was very personal and we found that we had stories and ideas through the salt that we were able to share with people and it just took off.

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• Serious Eats: How to Cook with Specialty Salt
  September 2011

Over the past three weeks, we've seen the science behind how salt works, the value of specialty salt, and the incredible variety of flavored salts. If your appetite's whetted and you've purchased some specialty salt of your own, this week's Salt Mining is devoted to making your salty investment work best for you..

For guidance, I turned to Mark Bitterman, owner of The Meadow. Bitterman won the James Beard award for his book Salted, an exhaustive guide to salt, with recipes. His descriptions of his products are poetic, his knowledge encyclopedic. He preaches the thoughtful application of salt and a deeper understanding of its relation to cooking. The man knows his salt.

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• Sally J Shim
  July 2011

Portland is home to some lovely little shops and The Meadow is one of them. The Meadow carries fresh flowers, local and imported chocolate, salts and bitters. I'm not a big chocolate person but on this particular visit the boys were with me and I let them pick out some chocolate. J chose a Xocolatl de David salted caramel bar [which is handmade here in Portland] and j picked Xocolatl de David fleur de sel caramels. And for someone who doesn't usually care for dark chocolate I thought both were quite tasty. The staff is quite friendly and knowledgeable and there is even a basket of toys for kids to play with while you shop.

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• Eat TV
  July 2011

Mark Bitterman, a self-proclaimed Selmelier, is more than a little bit obsessed with salt. Step into The Meadow, his jewel-box of a store in the West Village of Manhattan (or the original location in Portland, Oregon) and be taken on a journey to the bottom of lakes and seas, across mountains and salt flats, and through deserts on camelback to explore the vastly wide—and largely unknown—world of salt.

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• MSNBC
  July 2011

Many of us probably take a product like salt for granted because it's available everywhere and it's cheap. Therefore, most of us would never even think of creating a high-end food and gift business based on salt. One business has actually found success in doing so however. That's because the owners managed to market themselves by properly seasoning their story.

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• Professor Chocolate
  July 2011

Professor Chocolate is Neill Alleva and Rob Monahan, two elementary school science teachers who can also school you in everything you need to know about finding your favorite gourmet chocolate treats in New York City.

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• The Guardian- Savour Salt
  May 2011

Savour Salt-the seasoning of the senses A new major study of 3,681 people published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association has again seriously undermined the prevailing attitude among media and public health officials. It found no correlation between moderate salt intake and hypertension.

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• The Seattle Times- Cooking with Salt Blocks are Hot- or Cold
  May 2011

AS I PULL the Himalayan pink salt bowl from its wrappings, I'm struck by the sheer weight of the thing. Cool to the touch like marble, it reminds me of a rose-quartz mortar. Just to be sure, I lick my finger, swipe and taste. Definitely salt. Still, I'm undecided about whether to cook in this beauteous bowl or put it on a pedestal and admire it.

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• Travel Oregon- Chilling & Grilling
  July 2011

A couple weeks ago, I was delighted to be invited to a Himalayan Salt Block Cooking Class at The Meadow, an artisan salt shop on Mississippi Avenue. I’ve been wanting to check out The Meadow for quite some time as my husband and I fancy ourselves foodies and I was glad to finally have the opportunity to do so.

The Meadow is five years old and was started as a flower and salt shop by Mark Bitterman and his wife. Shortly after opening, the couple added wine and chocolate to their offerings. It’s hard not to be charmed by the shop (or by the entire wall of fancy chocolate bars)

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• WPR: Here on Earth
  June 2011 - Salt

It's the most universal of ingredients and the one most easily overlooked. From Sel Gris to flake salt, Mark Bitterman argues that the better you know your salt, the better every meal will turn out.

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• Smith & Ratliff
  May 2011 - Salty, Bitter, Flowery, and Sweet

While walking down the West Village’s Hudson Street one day last fall, a new shop caught our eye. A formerly vacant space was once again full of life—bursting forth with brightly-colored flowers and tall shelves filled with, of all things, chocolate and salt. Once we actually entered The Meadow, we discovered that it was even better than we had initially thought! The Meadow sells more than 100 (yes, a hundred!) varieties of salt, some of the most beautiful and unique flowers I’ve ever seen, an amazing variety of chocolates, and, in the back, an extensive collection of cocktail bitters.

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• The Recipe Club
  May 2011 - Author Spotlights: Author Spotlights: Salted by Mark Bitterman

I wrote Salted because I was frustrated—or maybe appalled is the better word. There was not a single book out there that seriously examined the different salts produced by different people around the world. Salt is the first ingredient, the most universal ingredient, the most powerful ingredient. For ten millennia salt has been made by virtually every society in every corner of the globe, where it reigned supreme over entire cultures. Every salt was a unique reflection of the world’s diverse peoples.

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• The Splendid Table
  November 2010 - Portland chefs win major national honors

Hosted by award-winning Lynne Rossetto Kasper, The Splendid Table is a culinary, culture and lifestyle program that celebrates food and its ability to touch the lives and feed the souls of everyone. This week we talk with Mark Bitterman author of Salted, A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes. We get a look at the world of a wine importer—with boutique importer Terry Theise—author of

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• KGW Portland
  May 2011 - Portland chefs win major national honors

A Portland food writer has won a James Beard award for his book, and several local chefs have been nominated for awards at Monday's ceremony. Mark Bitterman, co-owner and co-founder of The Meadow food store, on N Mississippi Avenue, won the award in the Reference and Scholarship category for his book, "Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral." Portland stands to win even more Monday night with three local chefs up for Best Local Chef in the Northwest, and Gabriel Rucker, of Le Pigeon, nominated for Rising Star Chef of the Year.

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• The Kitchn
  March 2011 - Store Profile: The Meadow

Mark Bitterman, owner of the Meadow and author of Salt, considers salt, wine, chocolate and flowers the essentials in life, that's why he sells these items at his store. Walking into this gem of a shop, on Mississippi Ave in NE Portland, is like being transported into a sensoral vortex. Once you're in there, it's hard to leave. The salts are unexpected and very pungent, flavored with things like cacao, lemon and Japanese plums. Then there's the bright bunches of flowers giving off a heady perfume. Finally, it's the chocolate bars and wine bottles, their packaging and promise of what's inside, that dazzle me into a headspin. This shop is fantastic for gifts, and you may end up with a few purchases for yourself. Oh hello lavender bitters, I must have you!

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• Hartman Salt
  May 2011 - Food Immersion - Portland: From Hyper-Local to Mainstream

For a clear example of America’s evolving food culture, look no further than The Meadow. You’ll find a wide selection within its four narrow categories: salt, chocolate, specialty liquor and flowers. The Meadow stocks over 100 varieties of salt, 400 types of chocolate and a staggering array of bitters, an herbal essence that provides balance in great cocktails, originating in oldie times and thankfully experiencing a renaissance in forward-leaning cocktail bars today. The Meadow is owned by salt aficionado Mark Bitterman, author of Salted: a Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, assuring us that we were on the right track for delving into the World of Salt.

The Meadow and their selmeliers (salt sommeliers), aptly guide salt-curious consumers through a maze of well-curated salts for their nuanced flavors and varied applications. The Meadow encourages consumers interested in savoring experiences beyond iodized table salt, to sample unusual and unexpected flavors when it comes to the most basic and foundational flavoring agent. Think ethereal Shinkai Deep Sea for elevating seared scallops on a Wednesday evening or woodsy-scented Red Alder Smoked salt for enhancing buttery roasted almonds. Beyond The Meadow, salt is currently experiencing a renaissance in the US. Yet, American food tradition dictates that salt is part of industrial processed food, whereas modern cuisine celebrates less processed salts for their ability to execute culinary alchemy, in turn cuing consumers that the product is less processed and of higher quality. As in other food cultures where distinctive salts are deeply rooted in culinary tradition, salt and its transformative powers are progressing into a mature food category here in American food culture..

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• Chicago Tribune
  March 2011 - Rules of strategic salting from a 'selmelier'

Mark Bitterman calls himself a "selmelier," a made-up word meant to evoke his wish to do for salt what sommeliers do for wine: educate, surprise, delight. Co-owner of The Meadow, a specialty food and flower shop with branches in New York City and Portland, Ore., he has written a book called "Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes" (Ten Speed, $35).This handsome tribute to salt outlines its history, varieties, method of manufacture and proper use. He hopes to help Americans relearn what they know about salt and how they use it.

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• AT HOME Blog - Portland Monthly
  May 2011 - Take it with a Grain of Salt, Or a Chunk… - “Trust no one unless you have eaten salt with him,” said Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher. (Oh but wise old Cicero turned against his comrade Anthony and well, let’s just say he was history after that.) The Romans prized salt. Soldiers were often paid in salt and so, we have the word salary. Other salt related words are salami and salatious, both fitting in an Italian context. There’s some ancient history for you, but did you realize there are over 150 types of salt? And, did you know that salt comes in a rainbow of colors, and like wine, tastes unique to its terroir? At The Meadow, a small shop on Mississippi, you can learn all you’d ever need to know about this essential crystal.
  
  I have quite a significant selection of salts in my kitchen pantry. A chunk of pink Himalyan for grating. A big bag of grey sea salt for texture. A bulk white California sea salt for salting water, cooking, and pickling (I don’t use kosher or any adulterated salts). A big tub of fleur de sel that my friend’s French mother always brings me on her visits. A box of Maldon Celtic salt flakes that add a wonderful crunch. And, a black Hawaiian salt that I sprinkle over light colored foods for a dramatic effect. I thought I was overdoing it until I checked out the selection at The Meadow. Of course, I began to get yet another salt craving. I might need that Djibouti Boule from Lake Assal in Africa, with crystals that range from tiny to the size of a softball. And, the Aburi sea salt smoked over cherry wood might be the perfect touch over pan-roasted cod.
  

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• VIA MAGAZINE
  January 2011 - Portland's Salt Seller

Mark Bitterman roamed the globe hunting special salt for 20 years before he and his wife, Jennifer, opened the Meadow, a gourmet shop selling more than 100 kinds of salt in Portland’s North Mississippi neighborhood. Mark’s obsession crystallized in late 2010 with the publication of Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes, a comprehensive guide.

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• NEW YORK(WABC)
  February 2011 - Shop sells worldwide gourmet salt

There are collectors of artwork and baseball memorabilia but Mark Bitterman is interested in something quite different. He is a collector of salt from around the globe and has now opened a store with his wife in New York City where everyone can have a taste.

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• Meet & Eat: Mark Bitterman, Selmelier, The Meadow
  April 2011

Yes, you read that correctly. Mark Bitterman is a Selmelier —a salt expert. He and his wife Jennifer Turner Bitterman, both former New Yorkers, recently opened an NYC branch of The Meadow, a shop they started in Portland, Oregon. This West Village boutique not only carries salt, but chocolate, bitters, syrups, oils and vinegars, or, as the Bittermans like to say, it's "a place where the beautiful, the delicious, and the unexpected are brought together for your pleasure." The couple was just nominated for a James Beard Award and two IACP Awards for their book, Salted. In case you haven't had the chance to stop by the store, here's a little taste of what you're missing.

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• The Blue Lifestyle Minute
  April 2011 - A Love for Salt

A seasoned gift. I'm Anthony Dias Blue with the Blue Lifestyle Minute sponsored by CUISINART. Salt is so much more than a drink rimmer or a chip’s sidekick. Mark Bitterman explores the nuanced properties of this seasoning in his book Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral. Serving as “selmelier” at Portland, Oregon’s The Meadow, a critically acclaimed artisan-product boutique, Bitterman has channeled his far-reaching knowledge into a field guide to artisan salts, including the history of salt making, a reference guide, and a compilation of specialty recipes. Salted profiles 80 varieties of salt, ranging from the fleur de sel harvested from Celtic plantations to exotic rock salts found in the Sahara. The practical application portion includes recipes for everything from mango salsa with Hawaiian black lava salt to salt crust–roasted partridge with figs and chocolate. SALTED is available in stores and online for $35, from Ten Speed Press.

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• PSU Vanguard
  October 2010 - Pursuing a higher, saltier power

Welcome to The Meadow. Portland's own (yet world-renowned) purveyor of the culinary world's most sacred commodity: salt. How seriously do the priestesses at The Meadow take their ministry? They stock more than 70 varieties of salt. From finishing salts like Andes Mountain Rose to artisan salts like Djibouti Pearls—The Meadow is absolutely guaranteed to have something that will send you into salt Samadhi

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• WNYC Culture
  February 2011 - Last Chance Foods: Pass the Salt - The Meadow, a store that offers more than 100 types of gourmet salt, opened in the West Village this past November. At first glance, the timing seems like it couldn’t be worse. Last year, New York City joined the National Salt Reduction Initiative, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg heavily publicized the campaign to lower sodium in foods. The initiative was just the start to a much more nuanced debate, one that was dubbed “the Salt Wars,” by former New York Times columnist James Tierney.
  

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• Martha Stewart
  January 2011 - Just around the corner from my home is an amazing new shop, The Meadow, that specializes in gourmet salts, chocolates, cocktail flavorings, and unique dishes, salt cellars, and spoons. The original store is located in Portland Oregon and has been open for a few years. I was first taken by the astonishing array of salts the store has to offer (all of which you can taste before buying). With varieties from every corner of the world (Hawaii, southern France, the Himalayas), I immediately started to think how wonderful they would be to season the dishes I order in or the few I make at home. French fries with Black Diamond salt would be delicious and striking.
  

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• Time Out New York
  January 2011 - A Shop Worth its Salt

Dour city officials may have declared sodium a public enemy last year, but that didn’t stop Portland, Oregon–based salt shop the Meadow (523 Hudson St between Charles and W 10th Sts, 212-645-4633) from opening an outpost here in the fall. Thirty-plus countries are represented in the store’s collection of more than 100 salts, each painstakingly sourced by husband-and-wife owners Mark and Jennifer Bitterman. Perennial chef favorites like delicate fleur de sel, flaky Maldon and quartz-like slabs of Himalayan pink are well represented. But the real treat is chatting with the shopkeepers and tasting their colorful, far-flung finds, contained in glass canisters lining the shelves. A new arrival, the Alaska Pure (bright, sweet flakes with a mineral crunch) works with everything from moist fish to winter green salads, and the magenta-pink Maboroshi Plum Salt, made from the vinegar of salt-preserved plums, has an acidity that plays well with sautéed vegetables, pork and poached eggs. The Bittermans call these crystalline beauties “elemental pleasures,” and the same can be said of the rest of their offerings: Flowers—including amaryllis and tulips—fill the space, ready for an impromptu arrangement; bitters, like local upstarts Bittermens and Regan’s, are arranged on hemlock tables; and an entire wall of chocolates emphasizes rare and single-origin varieties. We favor Byrne & Carlson’s stunning, limited-production bars decorated with crystallized violets, and the Sahagun Sun Drops—dark-chocolate balls oozing sunflower-seed butter and raw blackberry honey. We can’t help but think that a handful of these, and an upgrade from Morton table salt, might be just what some curmudgeonly legislators need.

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• Epicurious
  January 2011 - Pink Himalayan Salt Plates

I recently received two pink Himalayan salt plates for Christmas. They are, after reading Mark Bitterman's salt tome, Salted, exactly what I wanted.
The plates are carved from boulders of Himalayan salt rock quarried from mine shafts in Pakistan. The salt rocks' color ranges from cherry blossom pink to duck breast burgundy. Fissures naturally run through the stone create lightning-like cracks of white color, making the plates even more visually engaging.
The plates have a number of uses which vary based on their temperature and can be used as a serving platter, a curing stone, or a cooking surface. When the plates are cold they can give chocolate or butterscotch ice cream a perfect hint of salt that balances the sweet. At room temperature, I use the plates to cure crepe paper thin slices of sirloin beef. The salt imbues them with a pleasant, minerally flavor and effectively cooks the beef. A splash of lemon juice and a flurry of parsley pleasantly finish the dish creating a delightfully old-world appetizer. Fish such as yellowtail or salmon also cure well on the plates. Plus, unlike soy sauce, whose salty flavor can easily overpower fish, the salt plates offer a salt flavor that carefully heightens the flavor of the fish.
Lastly, the plates can easily be heated for cooking purposes as well. Bacon and eggs, flank steak, duck breasts, and even dinner rolls cooked on the plates pick up a delicate saltiness that gives food dimension.
Salt plates can easily be purchased online at stores such as The Meadow or SaltWorks.

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• Glutton for Life
  January 2011 - Salt Seller

Salt is in the zeitgeist. Although the stuff has been around literally forever (read this book on its fascinating history), it’s being particularly fetishized at this moment. No fewer than 3 people gave me salt this holiday season, bringing my collection to 18 different types! A couple of the gifts came from the same store: The Meadow, on Hudson Street in New York City. Jennifer Turner Bitterman and her husband “selmelier” Mark Bitterman founded this boutique in Portland in 2006. It specializes in salt, chocolate, flowers and wine (though on a recent visit I noticed only bitters; more on those later). The assortment of salts is truly mind-blowing. From Bengal Blue to Smoked Red Alder, there are more than 100 types, sourced from all over the world. The most instantly striking thing in the store are blocks and slabs of pink Himalayan salt, big translucent pieces for cooking and serving food. You can arrange sashimi on a chilled brick of the stuff and watch the edges of the fish turn pale and firm as it actually cures right there. Or heat a block on the stove or the barbeque and grill thin slices of flank steak for a unique and delicately salty flavor. I can’t wait to try this!

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• Copywriter's Kitchen
  December 2011 - Salt of the Earth Gifts for Cooks

Need a gift for the foodie who has everything? Wander over to The Meadow. Featured in the New York Times, The Meadow sells chocolate from around the world, an extensive line of artisanal bitters and over a hundred different kinds of salt. I recently spent an enthralled half hour in The Meadow’s shop on Hudson Street in New York City. Part Victorian greenhouse, part alchemy shop, part candy stand, The Meadow is filled with delectable items. A long display table and wall shelves—made of 100 year-old salvaged hemlock planks—hold fragrant flora and edibles: Flowers, mosses, tiny salt cellars, row upon row of chocolate bars and hundreds of apothecary jars filled with salt of every color, grain and provenance imaginable. Your eye is immediately drawn to The Meadow’s grotto-like store window, stacked round with what look slabs of luminous, pink quartz. But they’re not. The rosy, translucent chunks are actually Himalayan salt, quarried and cut in Tibet. Beautiful as they are, the Himalayan salt blocks are also practical: You can serve—and cook!—food on the slabs.

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• Northwest Food News
  January 2011 - Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral

This interview originally ran on the Food for Thought show on KLCC in Eugene
Salt connoisseur Mark Bitterman says it’s time to trash the Morton’s and even that culinary favorite, kosher salt. Bitterman, a self-proclaimed “selmelier,” has just published “Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral.” Laura McCandlish recently caught up with Bitterman at the Meadow, his gourmet salt shop in Northeast Portland.

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• FOX NEWS
  January 2011 - Sixteen Sweet Cookbooks

Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes by Mark Bitterman. (Ten Speed Press). Everyone writes about exotic salts but no one says how to use them beyond saying sprinkling them on steak and tomatoes, says Sherman, “but Bitterman does.”

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• OREGON LIVE
  December 2010 - Best of 2010: Crack open the cookbook cream of the crop

"Salted" By Mark Bitterman Ten Speed Press, $35, 312 pages
The subtitle of "Salted" says it all -- "A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral" -- because this book isn't really a cookbook, not in the recipe-driven sense of the word. It's more of a user guide, and an inspiring one at that from author Mark Bitterman, who owns the North Portland salt boutique The Meadow. From the lively introduction, in which Bitterman recounts his first experience with sea salt, to the geeky chapters on the history and science of the stuff, to the slim selection of recipes broken into categories like "brining," "curing," "salt crust" and "cooking on salt blocks," this book is aimed at inspiring and educating people on the virtues of natural salt.
Bitterman's passion is infectious -- especially after reading his Salt Reference Guide, which takes up the bulk of the book and provides poetic mini-essays on dozens of salts. The Salish Alder Smoked, for example, "sizzles with intense smoke flavor. ... grinding a few crystals over hearty dishes effortlessly evokes the traditional flavors of the Pacific Northwest." How can you not want to cook with that salt? Short bulleted lists describe the salts' characteristics at an oft-hilarious glance -- one salt's crystal structure is described as "heavy-bottomed shot glasses for mice"; another has the flavor of "electrified frost." Though borderline silly, the playful guide does give readers a sense of what to expect from each salt and how best to use it.
Recipe we liked: Flambéed Bananas With Cyprus Hardwood Smoked Salt -- Danielle Centoni

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• ISIIAD
  December 2010 - The Meadow

The Meadow specializes in flowers, gourmet finishing salts, artisan made chocolates and a great selection of unusual fine wines which pretty much covers the very best things in life. Thanks to Jennifer's well trained eye, (her credentials include working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty, the Frick Collection and director of a major Art Gallery in Portland) the shop has a great look with loads of character. The interior fittings have been made from thick slabs of hemlock and yellow pine reclaimed from old barn timbers milled in the late 1800's The weathered looking exposed bricks were apparently covered by several layers of plaster so had not seen the light of day for many decades. Beautiful blooms including peonys (my favourite) are displayed on a long table in the centre of the store.

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• SEATTLE TIMES
  November 2011 - Salty advice and a recipe for Chevre with Cyprus Black Flake Sea Salt and Cacao Nibs

Salting as a deliberate act.
Sounds a bit intense. And for Mark Bitterman, it is. It's a call to action, a plan to banish bland food. "Think about salting as a deliberate act," says Bitterman, author of "Salted" (Ten Speed Press, 2010), a 312-page devotional to salt. "This isn't about being a fancy chef. It's about how to make every single food you eat in your daily life come alive." Because truth is, salt has a powerful effect on food. And just a little bit goes a long way. Here's Bitterman's tips to help you sort through the maze of salts that crowd the market. Salts vary in moisture, mineral content and the size and structure of their crystals, Bitterman says. Moisture dictates "mouth feel," while mineral content will play up or tone down a food's intrinsic qualities, such as fruitiness. Crystal size creates different sensations on the tongue.

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• NY DAILY NEWS
  November 2010 - The Meadow in the West Village sells over 100 varieties of salt from all over the world

If your idea of salt is limited to what comes in a shaker, a trip to the West Village will rock your world. The Meadow, which just opened Wednesday on 523 Hudson Street, sells over 100 kinds of salt, from coarse to flaky, volcanic to rose-colored, Mesquite smoked to salt mixed with truffles. Some taste strongly of mineral, others taste fresh from the sea. Shop owner and cookbook author Mark Bitterman and his wife Jennifer want you to toss your box of iodized salt. "Our focus is on finishing salts," Bitterman told the News. "We suggest using more complex salts at the end of the cooking process rather than adding in the middle." Each salt can be paired with a certain foods. He recommends a flake salt for salad dressings. The silvery-gray sel gris is ideal for finishing meats. A Fleur du Sel makes butter pop. Taster size salt bottles (1.2 oz) start at around $4 and go up from there. Two and half pounds of their multipurpose sel gris will run you about $14.

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• TASTING TABLE
  November 2010 - Salt Sellar: Mark and Jennifer Bitterman have scoured the globe for infinite renditions of their favorite ionic compound: salt.

Their obsession first led to The Meadow, a Portland, Oregon, boutique that specializes in rare salts as well as specialty chocolates, small-batch cocktail bitters and fresh flower arrangements.
Now they've brought their wares to the West Village in a shop that just opened on Hudson Street (click here for hours). Hand-labeled apothecary jars, each filled with salt, line the shelves of the long space. And each tells a story: There are gumball-shaped boules from Djibuti, stark-white nuggets harvested from Icelandic hot springs, bright pink Maboroshi Plum salt from Japan and Burgundy rock salt infused with Oregon Pinot Noir.
Himalayan salt blocks and bowls--which you can heat and cook directly on--are stacked vertically alongside handmade silver salt cellars and copies of Mark Bitterman's excellent new book, Salted, which chronicles the history and science of the mineral and includes recipes.
Other shelves showcase a chocolate collection highlighted by cult makers like Claudio Corallo, a curated selection of bitters and displays of seasonal flowers.
The Meadow will also host salt and chocolate tastings, plus cocktail and cooking classes; click here for a sampling of offerings.

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• DAILY CANDY
  November 2010 - Salt Seller, The Meadow Salt Dispensary Opens

You’ll do anything to score just one perfect, crystalline nugget.
But now it’s legal in NYC: Portland salt dispensary The Meadow has just opened in the West Village, offering taste-enhancing substances that’ll appease both selmeliers and finicky gift getters.
Present-ready glass jars brim with a rainbow of exotic crystals like French sel gris, pink Himalayan blocks, and Vietnamese and Djibouti pearls. No idea what to do with Brazilian sal grosso? Attend a tasting, cooking class, or salt pairing to learn where to sprinkle it.
Smoked, wine-infused, and cocktail seasonings are all on the menu, too, meaning that distinctive hostess gifts are a breeze (and, at $3-$10, within your budget). Plus, there’s a curated collection of chocolate bars, seasonal flowers, and infused bitters and syrups for last-minute presents.
Ensuring you’ll never be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

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• PAPERMAG
  November 2010 - The Meadow Is Our Shop of the Week

Welcome to The Meadow, a scrumptious West Village newcomer stocking the world's finest chocolates, salts, syrups and bitters in a wee space on Hudson. Over 500 types of artisanal chocolate bars are beautifully wrapped and perfectly lined along the left wall -- like the sweets shops of yesteryear.

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• GOTHAMIST
  November 2010 - Bloomberg Be Damned: NYC Gets Store Dedicated To Salt

After opening the first location in Portland, Mark and Jennifer Bitterman opened up their West Village location last week. One friend tells us they have over 130 varieties of salt, most of which you can see on the website. There's everything from Icelandic hot springs salt to sel gris, smoked salt to "Vanilla Finishing Salt" from Wales. Selmelier (yup, that's a word) Mark Bitterman has also published what he calls the first salt classification book ever: Salted.

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• Nearsay
  November 2010 - The Meadow, An As'Salt' On Your Tastebuds

West Villagers will no longer need to worry about getting enough salt in their diet. The Meadow, a gourmet salt, flower, and chocolate shop, is now opened on Hudson Street.

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• GreenwichTime
  October 2010 - For great food, writer says salt as deliberate act

Salting as a deliberate act.
Sounds a bit intense. And for Mark Bitterman, it is. It's a call to action, a plan to banish bland food.
"Think about salting as a deliberate act," says Bitterman, author of "Salted" (Ten Speed Press, 2010), a 312-page devotional to salt. "This isn't about being a fancy chef. It's about how to make every single food you eat in your daily life come alive."

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Also Published in the Winnipeg Free Press

• Oregon Homes
  Aug-Sept 2010

Oregon Homes featured The Meadow in its article about shopping on North Mississippi. An excerpt:

The four year old shop - which also sells flowers, wine and chocolate - is small, but Parisien pretty, which is no coincidence, since co-owners Jennifer Turner Bitterman and Mark Bitterman lived there for a year after marrying. "There was the sweetest little butcher shop five blocks from where we lived in Paris," Jennifer says of the inspiration for their shop. "Just a tiny space with meats, five mustards and five bottles of wine. It was so subtle and sweet."

• Cooking Light
  June 2010

Cooking Light featured Jennifer and Mark Bitterman and the Meadow in its feature on local food heros. An excerpt:

[Mark] tells of the day an older Welsh couple stopped in, the wife practically dragging her husband by his ear. The man looked dismissive. Bitterman pulled out a jar of Halen Mon Gold, an amber-colored smoked sea salt from Wales, and told them the story behind the salt. An 800-year-old oak tree fell, devastating the property owners, who mourned until they decided they could use the wood to smoke a local salt. "The husband’s eyes just went wide," Bitterman gleefully recounts. "I knew he’d love that gorgeous, oaky, barbecuey salt. It’s a manly favor. They became regular customers after that."

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• The Washington Post
  March 2010

The Washington Post Food Section wrote an article on Mark and the most important spice in the world, salt. An excerpt:

"As far as my research goes, kosher salt is obtained from the sea and does not contain additives. Mark disagrees: “I think if squeeze-tube margarine is your butter, hot dogs are your meat, and spray-whiz nacho sauce is your cheese, then I suppose kosher can be your salt. Otherwise, reach for a natural salt"...So what salt does he use instead of regular old table salt? “I use sel gris. Think of sel gris as a whole food: it contains 84 trace minerals occurring naturally in the sea, has irregular, chunky crystals and plenty of residual moisture that lends each crystal a supple crunch.”

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• Food and Wine Magazine
  March 2010

Food and Wine Magazine featured Mark and Jennifer Bitterman and The Meadow in it's March 2010 Tastemaker column. The article discusses Mark and Jennifer's quest to find the perfect salt for every dish. The perfect salt for Vanilla ice cream? Iburi Jio Cherry salt from Japan.

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• The Herb Companion
  October 2010

Mark Bitterman, owner of specialty food shop The Meadow in Portland, Oregon, has been obsessed with artisanal salts for years, and he’s found a perfect pairing for—believe it or not—vanilla ice cream! Iburi Jio Cherry salt is cooked over a cherry-wood fire for three days until its flavor is caramel-y, which, it turns out, might be better than chocolate sauce on your ice cream sundae.br />

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• Food Lover's Guide to Portland
  Spring 2010

Liz Crane has written a book on food in Portland, and has included The Meadow in it. An Excerpt:

"…. Mark and Jennifer Turner Bitterman opened The Meadow in the summer of 2006 as a small floral shop with a decent section of specialty salts in the corner that they'd acquired during years of travel. The small North Mississippi shop is now home to more than 90 specialty salts, a wall of hard-to-find wines, ciders, bitters and vermouths, more than 300 types of chocolate bars, edible flowers such as acacia, apple blossoms, hibiscus and more. It's the kind of place where you crouch down to see what's on a low shelf and discover what Mark Bitterman deems, "A game changing soy sauce." Then you turn 90 degrees and discover a tin of the couple's favorite anchovies. The wooden table toward the back of the shop nestled in the wine section is usually topped with a taster or two for you to nibble or sip on -- a local hard cider that they can't get enough of, a just-in deep sea salt from Kona reminiscent of champagne, some rare Icelandic sea salt slowly evaporated and chock full of minerals and flavor. The Meadow regularly hosts classes in the evenings on everything from Himalayan salt block cooking, to an introduction to artisan salt or salted caramels. These small classes usually cost $15-$20 and fill up fast…"

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• Cooking Light Magazine
  December 2009

Cooking Light featured our Starter set in their Editor’s Choice section.

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• Snapshot Magazine - Dark chocolate bars for all ages, for every moment of the day
  January 2010

Mark talks about The Meadow's approach to chocolate: "What inspired you to become a chocolatier?: We're not chocolatiers, we're sellers, much like a wine seller bottle shop, of exotic salts, chocolates, and more. We offer 350+ bars from all over the world. They're organized by vintages, regions, markers, single plantation, or not. We do tinker a little bit; the chocolates we make explore chocolate through the mineral lens of salt. Salt enhances the flavor of nearly everything, and chocolate is no exception."

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• KGW - Mixing It Up With Bitters and Vermouth
  October 2009

Unhappy taking the back seat to gin and vodka for all these years, bitters and vermouth take the spotlight tonight at The Meadow, Portland's source for artisan salt, chocolate, mixers and more. Read article

• The Oregonian - Taste: Using table salt? Shake things up instead
  October 2009

Mark Bitterman and his wife, Jennifer, own and operate The Meadow, a shop in North Portland that specializes in exotic table salts, chocolates, wines and flowers. To this couple, salt is an ancient ingredient that surpasses even fire in its ability to enhance the flavor of food. Mark is the salt expert -- a selmelier -- and here he shares some of his knowledge as well as a sampler of artisan salt and food combinations to try at home. Read article

• Eating Well: Nutrition News to Live By
  August 2009

Even if you're watching your sodium intake, you can enjoy sea salts. While gram for gram sea salt contain as much sodium as table salt, their larger crystals and unique flavors, derived from various sources, may result in your using less salt overall....Another way to minimize sodium: don't salt whle you're cooking and instead simply sprinkle a pinch of coarse sea salt on your finished dish before serving. Find interesting sea salts at gourmet shops or online at The Meadow.

• Bon Appetit: Finishing Salts
  July 2009

A sprinkle of quality salt brings out the complexity of a finished dish. This set of six includes smoky Iburi Jio Cherry, savory Amabito No Moshio, and four others.

• The Moment in The New York Times online - Culinary Voyage
  April 2009

Fair trade coffee. Biodynamic wine bars. A community garden on every other corner. Selmeliers (trans: salt connoiseurs). The locavore dining scene in Portland, Ore., can feel a little exhausting and earnest to the out-of-towner, even one from Williamsburg, Brooklyn - the land of house-made pickles and grass-fed butchers. The thing is, the food is that good, and the prices cheap. Here, a few highlights from the city's ever-expanding culinary utopia. View Article

• Women's Health - Gourmet Salts
  April 2009

Switch out your Morton's for a jar of this French-harvested "flower of salt," recommended by Mark Bitterman, owner of The Meadow, a gourmet salt shop in Portland, Oregon. Its delicate crunch and classic salt flavor wake up taste buds without sending them into cheek-puckering shock. Be sure to buy brands from the Guérande, Île de Ré, or Île de Noirmoutier regions south of Brittany—anything else is overpriced table salt. View Article

• Elegant Bride: Well Seasoned
  Winter 2009

Humble salt is enjoying something of a renaissance, with gourmets singing the praises of artisanal salt. Mark Bitterman has become an expert on the seasoning; he and his wife, Jennifer, own a store called The Meadow, in Portland, OR, where they offer 85 varieties of sea salt, which include those with mild to intense salinity, with a touch of sweetness and with hints of unexpected flavors (like truffles). For your wedding meal, Bitterman suggests featuring a trio of salts - a delicate fleur de sel, a snappy flake sea salt and a smoked sea salt - at each table. Use a tented card to introduce guests to the flavors and ideal uses of each, and encourage experimentation. At the end of the night, offer guests the chance to practice their new salt knowledge at home by giving small jars of crystals as favors.

• Portfolio.com / Eat Sheet: Salt
  November 2008

Today, salt's fortunes have shifted yet again. Connoisseurs claim additives give table salt a bitter, chemical flavor. So they are seeking out regional, hand-harvested specialty salts that come in a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. The retail and restaurant worlds have taken notice....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.

• CBS News Sunday Morning: The History of Salt, In a Pinch
  
  October 26th, 2008

Salt is a substance whose time has come - foodies take note.

Mark Bitterman and his wife, Jennifer, sell ninety varieties of salt at The Meadow, their shop in Portland, Oregon. They carry salt from the Andes to Australia, and he speaks of "some spectacular salts from Japan." View Article