May 15, 2025
It is the most important ingredient, found in every home or professional kitchen. We are talking about sea salt and its most prized variety: fleur de sel.
In salt pans, on warm days with moderate humidity and a breeze coming from the sea, we can hope for a thin layer of salt crystals to form on the water’s surface, which is then carefully hand-harvested to avoid breaking it. This is how fleur de sel is obtained, the most prized type of sea salt for its nutritional qualities, its unmistakable taste, and the traditional low-impact methods used in its production and harvesting.
Italy has a long tradition in sea salt production, and among its regions, Sicily stands out for the quantity and quality produced. Sicilian fleur de sel is not only a precious ingredient in the kitchen, but also a food deeply rooted in a millenary history linked to the salt pans of Sicily, particularly those of Trapani, Paceco, and Marsala. These salt pans represent a unique cultural and natural landscape, shaped by the interaction between human activities and the environment over more than two thousand years.
A pinch of history
The salt pans in the province of Trapani are among the oldest and most important in the Mediterranean. Their origin dates back at least to the 5th century BC when the Phoenicians began salt production along these coasts, leveraging their commercial expansion in the Mediterranean and recognizing the strategic and economic value of salt, which at the time was mainly used to preserve perishable foods.
Over the centuries, the management of the salt pans and salt production passed under the control of various civilizations: from the Romans, who also used salt as a form of payment to soldiers (from this custom comes the word "salary"), to the Normans and Angevins, who made it a state monopoly to ensure control and revenue. During the Spanish period, the Trapani salt pans reached their production peak, becoming the largest Mediterranean port for salt trade in the 17th century. With the world wars and competition from more industrialized salt pans, production declined. It was only thanks to the commitment of a few local producers and the classification of these areas as natural and protected reserves that this natural and cultural heritage was preserved and enhanced, keeping alive the tradition of artisanal fleur de sel harvesting.
An artisanal product
The slow, manual methods of harvesting fleur de sel, and the complete reliance on climatic factors such as wind, temperature, and humidity, are what make it an artisanal product from another era. While regular sea salt is produced by sedimentation (where sodium chloride, or salt, settles at the bottom of seawater collection basins), fleur de sel is produced by surface crystallization. Here’s how it works: seawater is collected in shallow basins arranged in sequence where evaporation progressively concentrates the salt content. The first basins are called evaporating basins, the final ones crystallizing basins because salt crystallization occurs there. If conditions are right, salt crystals rise to the surface as well as settle, forming a thin layer that salt workers then harvest with special tools, similar to sieves, during the coolest hours of the day. This production method requires great experience and care, as fleur de sel forms only under optimal conditions and for a short period. The manual harvesting and careful selection make this salt a unique artisanal product.
To highlight this uniqueness, Boniviri Fleur de Sel was created, enriched with 100% Sicilian ingredients with a fully traceable supply chain, in three versions: dried datterino tomato and oregano, herbs and lemon, orange and lemon. The spices and aromatic herbs we use are grown on Mount Etna, in Trecastagni (CT), by the SARI farm whose story we share here, and the citrus fruits are dried by us.
Nutrition, taste, and sustainability
Fleur de sel is minimally processed and does not undergo refining, so it retains its natural composition and purity. This way, minerals like magnesium, calcium, and potassium, which come directly from seawater, are not removed during production. It is precisely the presence of these minerals that gives fleur de sel a complex and aromatic flavor, allowing less to be used to season dishes, contributing to overall reduced consumption. Its taste, more sophisticated and less bitter than traditional sea salt, and its crunchy texture win over chefs and gourmet food lovers. In savory and sweet dishes (for example, Boniviri’s orange and lemon flavored fleur de sel is an excellent companion to chocolate desserts), fleur de sel melts slowly in the mouth, enhancing flavors without overpowering them.
Choosing Sicilian fleur de sel is also an ecological choice: production has a low impact as it relies on natural evaporation driven by temperature, with zero energy use. Moreover, no industrial machinery or highly polluting processes are used, both because harvesting is done traditionally by hand and to avoid disturbing wildlife species (such as flamingos) that, along with local flora, have found their ideal habitat in the salt pans, contributing to the vast biodiversity of this protected ecosystem. Without underground extraction or complex transport, fleur de sel has a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to mined salt.
