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OK, I have been thinking about finding a unique hobby for a long time and finally found something that sparks my interest a bit. Right now I"m interested in salts, how their taste varies by restaurant and by region. Call me bored and needing a summer project if you must. I'm going on vacation around Texas and New Mexico soon and was going to get salt from every town I go to, preferably from more than one restaurant per town if I can. I am peculiar about my salts and am going to be researching it too.

My Plan is to take a few salt packets from every restaurant I eat and mark the following information on the container I find for them:

1) Restaurant
2) Location
3) Date/Time
4) possibly any thoughts I have on the sample.

I am currently looking for a good case full of hopefully really small card holders (enough to organize multiple baggies with maybe 5-10 packets of salt each.) I was wondering if any of y'all know of some plastic baggies that might work for marking the samples. Something small enough to hold 5-10 packets securely. I've been looking around but can only find bigger baggies. Hopefully these will seal the packets from enough moisture that they will last a good few years. It might be interesting to sample a few older packets of salt from different places when I get older. I may also buy some random samplings of other kinds of salts for my collection but right now I want to limit it to restaurants. I promise I'm not crazy, just eccentric sometimes and this is a legitimate post lol.

to summarize my question: I'm looking for small "evidence" like plastic baggies that will fit 5-10 packets of salt and can be written on easily. It would be appreciated if yall could recommend something. (who knows I could get a discovery channel show.)

I'd suggest a science supply company.

A potential problem with your plan: the sources of salt are going to be limited to major suppliers who will use regional packaging and you'll have no means of sourcing the generic packets. If you want to do a salt taste comparison by region, I'd suggest heading to a store like Whole Foods where you'll be able to sample numerous salts and to identify where they were sourced and how they were processed. Then you'll get pink and black and Himalayan salt and not repackaged generic white iodized table salt.

You could take up geocaching or travel blogging or photography for the travel time if you still needed a hobby.

I've noticed the salt from my local sonic appears to be packaged in Oklahoma City, OK, I wonder if all the Sonic's buy from them. That's a good idea about going to a whole food store and just buying some of the different types. I think I will include those too. They will at least be easier to get as (as long as I don't end up with 10lbs of every type of salt available lol)

I would still like to get at least a small sampling and attempt to identify information about them.

I'm googling science supply companies right now!

http://www.uline.com/cls_01/Bags-Poly-Plastic" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My absolute favorite place for weird, oddball, and off-beat items is American Science and Surplus. Minimum order is $10, but I can never find "only" $10 worth of stuff. Here's what a quick search found re: plastic bags:
http://www.sciplus.com/search.cfm/scate ... /srch.fp/1

Enjoy!

By the way - the item descriptions are also usually quite humorous. Be careful with the drink/keyboard combo when searching.

oh nice these White Block Plastic bags look like they will do the trick nicely.

http://www.uline.com/Grp_187/Poly-Bags-White-Block

UpTheIrons wrote:My absolute favorite place for weird, oddball, and off-beat items is American Science and Surplus. Minimum order is $10, but I can never find "only" $10 worth of stuff. Here's what a quick search found re: plastic bags:
http://www.sciplus.com/search.cfm/scate ... /srch.fp/1

Enjoy!

JACKPOT! this site is cool! I might actually come out with multiple projects lol

Officer, It's salt...I swear!

USA1 wrote:Officer, It's salt...I swear!

WOW hahahah I absolutely never thought of that. Now do I still want to do it lol

TexasComputerDude wrote:

USA1 wrote:Officer, It's salt...I swear!

WOW hahahah I absolutely never thought of that. Now do I still want to do it lol

That's funny, it's the first thing I thought of.

I just watch too many episodes of COPS.

USA1 wrote:

TexasComputerDude wrote:

USA1 wrote:Officer, It's salt...I swear!

WOW hahahah I absolutely never thought of that. Now do I still want to do it lol

That's funny, it's the first thing I thought of.

That has to be the funniest post I've ever seen, I've got tears in my eyes over here.

If you ever find yourself in a Central Market, the spice area has tons of small plastic bags that they supply free of charge for their customers. They would probably be against it if you took 500 in one trip but I've taken a pinch before without anyone looking at me strangely. I take a slew of vitamins every day and I use them to organize them when I travel.

WEC wrote:If you ever find yourself in a Central Market, the spice area has tons of small plastic bags that they supply free of charge for their customers. They would probably be against it if you took 500 in one trip but I've taken a pinch before without anyone looking at me strangely. I take a slew of vitamins every day and I use them to organize them when I travel.

That could work too, I think I'm just going to buy a bunch for 10$ lol. I just need to find a good case that doesn't look like something a cocaine dealer would carry.

You might want to check these out from Brownell's: http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=1208 ... /POLY_BAGS" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No, I don't have stock in nor do I work for Brownell's, but they have such cool products and great customer service.

Another possible drawback to collecting this particular item might be an elevated blood pressure. Take it from me... the last thing you want is to be dependent on BP meds for the rest of your life.

As Hoi Polloi pointed out, you're not likely to get much variation in the taste of single serving prepackaged salt. You'll get more difference tasting by global region and/or method of processing.

Hoi Polloi also mentioned Geocaching. This is a most excellent hobby for people who travel a lot. It gets you out and about, and you get to experience each new environment in terms of minutiae you would never have access to otherwise.