Some cooks swear by the differences between sea, kosher and table salt, though most of us just buy a standard brand, without giving the matter a second thought. Some chefs will keep powdered, flaked, sea and kosher salt in their kitchens.

Personally, I tend to undersalt all my cooking -- especially soups and stews -- as I've always felt salt is easy for guests to add to suit individual tastes, but it's difficult to remove, if there's too much. One nationally recognized Vancouver chef, who is also not a big fan of salt, confided to me that he knows several chefs who salt heavily in order to up customer's intake of fluids (ie highly profitable liquids like wine and spirits!).

For the Asian palate, salt plays a big role, but the bad publicity MSG (a concentrated form of salt) has received has gone a long way toward making even Orientals more cautious about its use.

Still, terms like "salt of the earth" and "Worth his salt" harken back to the days when salt was so highly regarded that it was valued even more than gold.

Salt, once a commodity so precious that wars were fought over it, is now perhaps all the more precious because of medical warnings to keep intake low. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last yearm renewed debate on the health hazards of excessive salt. One of the authors of the controversial study was quoted as saying, "People can stop worrying about this issue. The present level of consumption is just fine for people with normal blood pressure." But a chorus of other experts disagreed.

Soon afterward, the salt industry, emboldened by the study, petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to remove the federally approved health claim that "Diets low in sodium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure" from the label of low-salt foods in the United States. Whatever the outcome, professional chefs and home cooks continue to re-evaluate their use of salt. Unlike other food "evils," such as fat or red meat, salt is essential for life -- as a regulator of body fluids, muscles and nerve impulses -- and for good-tasting food. I mean, could you imagine pickling without salt?

So, many people are rethinking their approach this common kitchen staple.

There essentially are three types of food salt: table salt, sea salt and kosher salt. Chemically, they are identical, all sodium chloride that comes from the sea or from dried sea beds. Table salt is made by driving water into a salt deposit and evaporating the brine that is formed, leaving dried cube-like crystals that look like granulated sugar. Sea salt, which comes in fine or coarse crystals, is made from sea water that has been trapped and evaporated. The fine crystals resemble table salt, while the coarse crystals look like the grains on soft pretzels. Kosher salt is made in much the same way as table salt, except that it is raked continuously during the evaporation, giving it a lighter and flakier texture.

Many cooks insist they taste differences among these salts, particularly between iodized table salt and the others. Table salt often is mixed with iodine to prevent goiter and as an anti-caking agent, but many chefs claim it has an "off" taste, so they prefer kosher salt, which has no additives.

Sea salt often is preferred by health-conscious consumers because it contains additional trace minerals. But experts say that "real" sea salt -- with all the minerals left in -- would be too bitter to be palatable. Most sea salt has been so filtered that it is nearly the same as pure table salt.

Alan Schoenberg of the Schoenberg Salt Co. Inc. in New York says there really is no reason why people should pay $4, $5, $6 a pound for "boutique" salt. His family-owned company distributes salt for both industrial and food uses. "There are people who like to buy rock salt and put it in a grinder. But to my mind, the only benefit is psychological."

Still, many cooks swear they taste a difference between sea and kosher salt, French and Spanish salt, and fine and coarsely grained salt, and some people -- like me -- do not really fancy salt at all. Schoenberg, whose family salt business is in its fifth generation and who prays for snow (he sells rock salt), said he doesn't use table salt. "There's enough salt in processed food," he said. "I really don't need to add any."