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I had never heard of this salt before. I found it reading an article in a new Italian food/travel magazine called Vie del gusto, published by Rizzoli in Milano. (For information see www.viedelgusto.net). The Longo family of Milano, from whom we buy Bardi panettone, made me aware of this extremely informational and well done magazine. However, it is currently published only in Italian! Cervia, a small town between Ravenna and Cesenatico on Italy’s Adriatic coast, surrounded by historical salt flats, is the site of Camillone, named for its original owner, the only artisanal seasonal salt flat left in Italy. Until 1959, when the flats were unified, there were 149 of these flats. It is Camillone which makes seasonal salt during the 200 days of the summer period, rather than using the current method of making salt once a year at the end of summer. Salt production at Cervia dates back more than 2,000 years, beginning with a mixed history dealing with the Umbrans and Greeks–who first gave a name, Phycoclae (later Ficocle), to the place. By 494 the area already had a bishop, owing to its importance. Ficocle disappears in conflicts between Ravenna and Byzantine authorities by 709. Cervia appears in a papal document in 997. Its name comes from the Latin “acervus” meaning a mound of white salt, called “white gold.” From its early modern history, salt production belonged to the bishop of Cervia, guaranteed by the bulls of three popes. During the 13th and 14th centuries it belonged to Venice. In this period, Venice and Ravenna contend Cervia and its salt. The despot of Ravenna used the poet Dante Alighieri in a diplomatic mission to establish peace between the two cities in 1320. Returning unsuccessful in 1321, he contracts malaria for his troubles and dies in Ravenna. Production of the “white gold” oscillates between local lords as administrators for the papacy and Venice. In 1509, Julius II asserts papal authority, and by 1529 Cervia and its salt return to the papacy, excepting the Napoleonic period, and remain part of the papal states until 1865 at the unification of Italy. The Italian state monopoly would control salt and its sale in Italy until 1973. Salt was always sold along with tobacco and stamps in kiosks controlled by the monopoly, the shops called “Sale e Tabacchi.” Only by 1976, did salt became freely saleable. Known as “sale dolce,” sweet salt, not because of less salinity, but due to its lack of the bitter salts found in sea salt, it figures in the salting of two famous products of the Emilia Romagna: parmigiano reggiano cheese and prosciutto di Parma. Cervia salt is unique in Italy coming from an important wetlands natural park of some 2,000 acres. Salts other than the Riserva Camillone are produced using the annual harvest methodology. The water is the same, the harvesting different. At times, no salt is produced. In 1944, flooding due to war, was the cause of no salt production. In 1977, pollution damaged the salt; in both 1981 and 1995, heavy rains ruin the harvest. All Cervia’s salts are made with a fractionated crystallization of the different salts present in sea water, given the fact that crystallization of the various salt components is in function of sea water density. Sea water enters the flats at a saline concentration of about 3.5 degrees Beaumè. By the time sea water reaches 27 degrees Beaumè and up to 30.5 degrees, it is only sodium chloride which precipitates. At higher concentrations, sodium sulfate, magnesium chloride and potassium chloride precipitate, giving salt its rather bitter aftertaste. All Cervia’s salts are entirely sea salt, with 2-4% natural humidity, never artificially dried or blended with anti-caking additives, preserving all of the minor elements, iodine, zinc, copper, manganese, iron, magnesium and potassium found in sea water. The salt workers closely monitor the entrance of concentrated salt water and as soon as sodium chloride has formed, run off the mother brine which contains the bitter chlorides. This and the muds formed are used for therapy treatments at Cervia spas.
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Corti Brothers
Sacramento CA
