All language subtitles for Omnivore.S01E03.1080p.WEB.H264-WealthyPearlPelicanOfCriticism

Life as we know it
begins with salt.

Born into this world
4.5 billion years ago,

it spread across the planet,

seasoning our oceans

and settling in dense deposits
beneath the earth's crust.

For thousands of years, humans have
done the most extraordinary things

to harvest salt.

In the Horn of Africa, at the
far end of the Great Rift Valley,

in the shadow of where it's
thought that humans first evolved,

lies one of the lowest
points on the planet.

A volcanic chasm some 150
meters below sea level,

home to a body of water ten
times saltier than the ocean.

This is Lake Assal.

Camel caravans have been moving salt
out of this otherworldly landscape

for centuries.

Back then, they called
it "white gold."

Omet Moosa is among the last
still working the salt today.

We are salt.

It's in us.

It's all around us.

At any given moment each of us is
carrying more than two saltshakers

of sodium chloride inside of us.

Coursing through our
blood, swelling our cells,

allowing our heart to pump, our
muscles to retract, our brain to feed.

But it's more than biology.

More than necessity.

Dig deeper,

and you'll find that the history
of salt is the history of us.

Ooh, my beautiful camel
Ooh, my beautiful camel

We will see what
will happen together

All the camels get tired
All the camels get tired

Except you

All the camels get tired
All the camels get tired

Except you

We'll cover it in
salt like this,

with the feet sticking out.

You go to a restaurant,

the food was under-seasoned.

It's the worst thing that
can happen to a cook.

A guest asking for salt... Whoo!

That will, uh, create
an instant panic.

When I first started out as
a cook, salt was just salt.

It was the same fine table
salt that any restaurant had.

Only when I started really
traveling and exploring the world,

I realized there's more
to salt than just salt.

Skimmed from mountain ponds.

Carved from caverns.

Boiled from the ocean.

Dynamited from mines.

Pink mountain. Black volcanic.

Blue crystal.

Of all the salt
wrested from the earth,

few have the quality
or the cachet

of the salt skimmed from the tidal
pools of France's western coastline

Fleur de sel.

In its meandering journey
from the Atlantic,

through the marshes
and tidal pools,

the salinity grows in intensity
as the water evaporates.

Here on Île de Noirmoutier,

salt has fueled the island's
economy since the dark ages.

Its 13-hundred-year history
is filled with ebbs and flows.

But one piece has
remained constant.

The delicate work extracting
Fleur de sel must be done by hand.

Seasoned veterans like
Elisabeth and Fabien spend years

learning to skim the fragile
crystals from the water's surface.

It's true that when
we look at a marsh,

we can recognize its owner.

The way we shape it
with our hands...

we inevitably put a little
piece of ourselves into it.

In my marshes you can find
my obsessions and my defects.

The part of me that
is very organized...

that thinks there
is no time to waste.

Everything has to be managed
as well as it can be.

What is a good day
for a salt worker?

It's a day when you can
dry your clothes outside.

As a matter of fact,
we don't extract salt.

The salt forms in front
of us as we pick it.

It's different from the salt that
comes from mines or from Djibouti.

That salt was formed thousands
or millions of years ago

and comes from dried-up seas.

We follow the
crystallization process.

It's difficult to harvest,

and it takes time.

That's because it's
a surface phenomenon.

However, there is a
mysterious aspect to this.

There isn't a formula
for Fleur de sel.

"You can't say,
"With this much water

and that much sun...

Poof! I can make
some Fleur de sel."

I ask myself a lot of
questions about how it works.

Sometimes I happen to make white
salt. Other times it's more gray.

Sometimes there's algae in the
marsh. Sometimes there isn't.

I've discussed this with
my salt worker friends,

and sometimes there is no
answer to these questions.

In nature, you have to adapt.

And that's what I
explain to the kids.

We can live just
fine if we adapt.

My son, Gustave, and I do everything
my parents said not to do.

We walk barefoot.

I teach him to use drills
and different tools.

We make dams out of dirt.

All the things we
wanted to do as kids.

And it's cool.

Let's go check on
the water plug.

See if it is opened or closed.

He already has his own marsh.

It's open.

- Can you close it?
- Yes.

He says it's his marsh.
It's Gustave's marsh.

Great.

And it is his marsh.

What we do in Noirmoutier is
something not many other places do,

but we keep doing it.

We dry it with the sun, and
we don't use any machines.

We don't use any energy at all.

We put the salt on a big table
and let it dry under the sun.

And when it is dry,
we sort it by hand.

Fleur de sel has
something different,

something more...

I think something more crunchy.

Some people find that
it tastes like violet.

It is like Beaujolais.

There are different
flavors every year.

Everyone finds what
they want in it.

Salt is layered into
every aspect of our story.

The numbers tell the tale.

There are more than 14,000
different uses for salt,

from making rubber
to melting snow.

Just 3% of today's
salt is used in food.

For 2,600 years, the Chinese
government controlled salt.

The oldest monopoly
in the world.

The taxes levied paid
for the imperial army

and for the Great Wall.

The English language teems with
dozens of words rooted in salt.

Sausage. Salary. Salacious.

The word "salt" is scattered
throughout the pages

of our most sacred scriptures.

"Salt of the earth."

"One fresh and sweet,
one salty and bitter."

"Everyone will be
salted with fire."

- Hi! How are you?
- Hi! How are you.

- Actually, it's a big season.
- Oh, yes.

Every human tear,
every drop of blood,

every bead of sweat...

...is seasoned with salt.

Once upon a time, a gram of salt cost
roughly the same as a gram of gold.

Today, a kilo of salt
goes for about 20 cents.

Not Fleur de sel.

A kilo of salt from Fabien
and Elisabeth's ponds

sells for more than ten dollars.

By the time it
finishes its journey,

this Fleur de sel will be in
kitchens around the world.

Back in the early days of noma,

it was the days of limited
budgets, limited guests.

We didn't have any machinery.
No real modern equipment.

And the first thing that
came to our mind was,

"What if we covered
things in salt?"

It was about wrapping
something around an ingredient,

so that the essence of
it got held together.

First thing we
did it with was...

during the winter, and it was
with, uh, celeriac and beets.

And a very mundane, simple
ingredient like celeriac

suddenly turned into
something luxurious.

I remember we would pack it in, uh,
mountains of salt and a few hours in

you could scoop out with a
spoon, much like an ice-cream,

you could scoop out this incredibly
tender and flavorsome celeriac.

The best I'd ever tried
at that one point.

Okay.

We may take salt
for granted today,

but not long ago
salt was everything.

Salt has shaped spirituality since
the beginning of civilization.

Influencing our beliefs, our rituals
and the stories we tell about ourselves.

Maras has been here
since the pre-Incan era.

Maras has been passed down
from generation to generation,

and we're still
working the salt.

These are the tears
of Ayar Cachi,

the god destined to
establish the Incan empire.

Locked in a cave by
his jealous siblings,

he cried until he created
the Salineras de Maras.

The Incas turned this sophisticated
network of salt ponds,

3,000 meters in the Andes,
into a thriving ecosystem.

It continues today,
virtually unchanged.

A testament to the ingenuity of one
of history's most advanced societies.

We start by moving
the salt around.

In Quechuan we call
this "chulquir."

And then we step on it.

After we do that, we
pick up the pink salt.

Pink salt can be used
for all types of food,

like roasts, mains,
sauces. Lots of things.

After the fall of
the Incan empire,

Maras salt was mainly used
in the small communities

that surround the salt pans.

Today, thanks to a unified cooperative
and a global distribution channel,

its value is appreciated
well beyond the Andes.

Maras salt is just one part
of an increasing awareness

of the Incas' contribution
to the food world.

And when the best chefs in
the world want to understand

a wild ingredient, or perhaps a
forgotten technique from this region,

they come to Cleto.

Cleto's central mission is a
different kind of preservation.

He wants to connect centuries of wisdom
to the food and traditions of today.

Teaching is my passion.

I love teaching the things
I've learned in my life.

Like the little I've
learned about Andean culture

and the history of the Incas.

Historically, charqui
comes from Inca times.

Here in the upper Andes,

salt is added to alpaca and
other fresh meat to make charqui.

Dried, portable,
potent and delicious.

You may know it as jerky,

but it started as a way to enjoy
meat through the cold winter months.

My mom and my dad
would make charqui.

That's the first time I
learned to make charqui.

Charqui is also a preserve.

If we leave the meat here, it will
go bad after two to three days.

But if we do the charqui process,
we will be able to preserve it.

Salt is the gift of time.

A pinch can stretch a
season into an eternity.

From bacalao to prosciutto

to salted vegetables,

preservation through salt

meant we'd always have
food close at hand.

Which allowed us to
explore the world at large.

At noma,

when we were nothing more than
five, six, seven months old,

we stumble upon ramsons.

There's this little
seed on there.

A bud of sort.

One of our foragers told
us that in the old days

they used to make
capers from these.

We just had to salt it and let it
go through a fermentation process.

It's an extraordinary
versatile ingredient

that has the punch of garlic,

the sweetness of cooked
onion, the salinity of a caper

- and the acidity that you might get...
- Mmm.

...from a lactic ferment
such as kimchi or sauerkraut.

Nadine.

It's just incredible.

Oh. It works.

What happens when you add salt
to vegetables or a piece of meat?

Let it sit long enough and lactobacillus,
a probiotic bacteria, will begin to form.

Feasting on natural sugars,

drawing out acidity and preserving
life, sometimes indefinitely.

The pickled vegetables
of eastern Europe.

The sheep milk
cheeses of the Levant.

Barrels of herring
in Scandinavia.

These products
aren't just staples,

but pillars of the
cultures they come from.

Few dishes play a more central
role in a country's culture

than kimchi does in Korea.

The act of making kimchi is an
act of community done by millions

across the country each fall, just
before the first frost arrives.

To Koreans, kimchi is as
essential as water or air.

That's how much our
body requires kimchi.

It's a food that our
body calls out for.

I may be able to live without my
husband, but I can't live without kimchi.

Koreans eat a lot of vegetables.

We preserve vegetables in salt,

then mix them up with seasoning
and process them with fermentation.

That's what we call kimchi.

When I was young,
about ten years old,

I remember my mother making
kimchi with neighbors.

They drank makgeolli and sang
songs after making kimchi.

It would take three days for my
family to finish making kimchi.

And then we went to another
house to help them make kimchi.

And then to another house.

People exchanged labor
with one another.

It's a precious and
delightful memory for me.

Hello, hello, nice
to see you! Welcome.

- Cabbages that are just right for Kimchi.
- Wow. Wow.

It's fabulous,
isn't it? The smell.

How beautiful.

Really like the spring
onions, too. Issue the bill.

Okay.

Today, we've changed from
a kimchi-making culture

to a kimchi-buying culture.

Kimchi has become a
commodity to be purchased.

So people have replaced the
high-quality ingredients

with cheaper ones in
a race to the bottom.

That's when I decided that I needed
to start my own kimchi business.

My goal is to reproduce
the high-quality flavor

of the kimchi that our
mothers used to make.

Even though I have a
kimchi producing company,

I believe my true talent lies in
teaching about kimchi and culture.

KIMCHI SONG

Kimchi, kimchi, delicious kimchi
Kimchi, kimchi, let's make kimchi

Are you ready?

Yeah!

Kimchi, kimchi, delicious kimchi
Why is kimchi good for me?

Do you want to know?

Yeah!

Kimchi is packed
with lactobacillus

That cleans out your bowels

Kimchi prevents disease
And keeps us healthy

Kimchi is a super food

Let's enjoy kimchi

Yeah!

Now I'll show you
how this big cabbage

becomes small like this.

To make this large cabbage
small, we need salt.

Right?

I'm really concerned that kimchi
won't be eaten by future generations.

Now our kimchi is ready! Oh?

Are you giving me a big
hand? Thank you so much.

Families eat out more.

They don't make kimchi at home.

And they don't feed kimchi
to their children very much.

Is everyone wearing gloves?

Yes!

Then try to add the chile paste.

Let me see how it's going.

Yes, add the paste like this.

Great job!

When kids make kimchi
themselves and bring it home,

they start eating kimchi.

This is because they make
it with their own hands.

Fermentation is more
than preservation.

It's flavor.

As microbes work to break
down larger compounds in food,

they amplify existing flavors and
create new ones along the way.

Sharp sour flavors.

Rich umami flavors that humans
had never tasted before.

Layer by layer, you
add the seasoning

and put it in a jar.

Then we bury the jar in the
ground for fermentation.

Ripen deliciously.

All strong flavors in
the world are addictive.

After trying kimchi once,

people keep coming
back for more.

Salting food is something
you gradually learn.

Step-by-step.

As a young person, you
cook your first egg.

You add salt to it. And you
figure out how much do you like.

Some more, some less.

I think as a cook,

and probably the one thing
that most home cooks forget,

is to taste and season.

Mmm.

Food can transform from
bland, uninspiring,

perhaps even...

...something you don't
like, to being delicious,

crave-able, "Give me more,"
"When can I have it again,"

"Please cook it next
week." You know?

That's a pinch of salt
that makes that difference.

Of course, as a professional chef,
if you don't know how to salt,

you... I don't know.

Can you even call
yourself a cook?

Salting is at the
essence of everything.

It really is.

We'll build a big huatia!

For all of our differences,

for all the things that make
one human unique from another,

one society distinct
from another,

we have a few things
that tether us together.

None more than what we eat.

Food is everything.

Mother Earth, we honor you.

Elena, daughters...
Cheers, nieces, nephews...

- Cheers, Dad.
- Cheers.

Salt may be necessary
for survival,

but it's also essential for one of
the most indispensable ingredients

in the human recipe.

Our pursuit of pleasure.

Gustave, could you bring me
the Fleur de sel, please?

You can put it on.
Put a little here.

Awesome. We're in for a treat.

It's what makes our
lives more delicious.

Imagine a roasted
potato without salt.

A fried egg without salt.

A meal or a life
without seasoning.

Wow.

That looks great.

Oh, yeah?

Thirty-five minutes.

Whoa.

Food is never just food.

It's a mirror.

A microscope.

A road map.

Good?

It's the story of who we are.