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When you go to the Dead Sea for a float in its extraordinarily buoyant waters, signs warn you to not drink a drop. "Did you swallow water?" one Dead Sea Dos and Don'ts list asks. "Go immediately to the lifeguard."

I've never sipped the stuff, but on one visit — it's less than an hour's drive from Jerusalem, between Israel, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank — I did pry several chunks of salt off an encrusted rock along the shore and took them home in a plastic cup. I thought they might grind up nicely and add an exotic taste, plus an interesting conversation piece, to our table.

But one big lick changed my plans. The salt burned my tongue a bit, like the Dead Sea water does to cuts on your body when you're floating. My casually harvested chunks also left a bitter aftertaste at the back of my throat.
So when I heard about someone marketing Dead Sea salt as a gourmet specialty, I was curious. It turns out that Israeli entrepreneur Ari Fruchter's salt from the Dead Sea is different.

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