I came across a recipe that called for Kosher Salt the other day.

Now, I’m certainly not the world’s biggest expert on what it means to be kosher, but I struggled to understand how salt would not be kosher.

Turns out that Kosher Salt is only called Kosher Salt in the US. In Britain, it’s called Koshering Salt, and in the rest of the world it’s mostly just called coarse salt.

It’s really just regular salt that has larger grains, i.e., is ground more coarsely. Because of the large grains, the salt is good for use in curing meats. (Or, to put it more graphically, in removing blood from meats.)

So what’s the deal with the name? For a meat to be certified as kosher, it cannot contain any blood. So the people who produce meat use this “kosher salt” to remove the blood and make the meat kosher.

And just for the record, all salt is kosher. Unless you add blood for some reason. And that would just be gross.

Source: wiseGeek