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Chiles and crushed maguey worms create an incomparable salt, sal de gusano, for elotes, margaritas and more.
Flavored salts, in my view, simply clutter the kitchen counter. If you have good sea salt and high-quality herbs or spices on hand, there’s no trick to creating your own. But there are exceptions, like this one, new to our pantries, from Oaxaca, Mexico, which combines salt with pequín and arból chiles and dried, crushed maguey worms. Yes, of course, dust the tangy, earthily assertive and fragrant rust-colored spice on the edge of your margarita glass, but also consider it for seasoning corn on the cob, ceviche or grilled shrimp. Christopher Kimball is selling it on his Milk Street website.
Sal de Gusano, $18.95 for 2.3 ounces, store.177milkstreet.com.
Florence Fabricant is a food and wine writer. She writes the weekly Front Burner and Off the Menu columns, as well as the Pairings column, which appears alongside the monthly wine reviews. She has also written 12 cookbooks.
A version of this article appears in print on July 31, 2019, Section D, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: To Spike: Flavored Salt Worthy Of Your Pantry. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe