Focaccia bread at CocoMaya. PICS/FALGUNI AGRAWAL

Recently, Mark Kurlansky, whose book Salt: A World History published in 2002, was in the city for a lit fest. Kurlansky, an American writer and journalist, refers to the food staple as the only rock we eat. Sea salt, he adds in the book, is a variant of salt that is harvested from the evaporation of sea water, and is available in a coarse form.