Liz Crane has written a book on food in Portland, and has included The Meadow in it. An Excerpt:
"…. Mark Bitterman opened The Meadow in the summer of 2006 as a small floral shop with a decent section of specialty salts in the corner that he'd acquired during years of travel. The small North Mississippi shop is now home to more than 90 specialty salts, a wall of hard-to-find wines, ciders, bitters and vermouths, more than 300 types of chocolate bars, edible flowers such as acacia, apple blossoms, hibiscus and more. It's the kind of place where you crouch down to see what's on a low shelf and discover what Mark Bitterman deems, "A game changing soy sauce." Then you turn 90 degrees and discover a tin of the couple's favorite anchovies. The wooden table toward the back of the shop nestled in the wine section is usually topped with a taster or two for you to nibble or sip on -- a local hard cider that they can't get enough of, a just-in deep sea salt from Kona reminiscent of champagne, some rare Icelandic sea salt slowly evaporated and chock full of minerals and flavor. The Meadow regularly hosts classes in the evenings on everything from Himalayan salt block cooking, to an introduction to artisan salt or salted caramels. These small classes usually cost $15-$20 and fill up fast…"
A friend shared one of the most beautiful items on earth, The Meadow's Black Truffle Sea Salt, with me last year and I now I can't live without it! It's forever a kitchen staple and one of my most treasured joys. 11/10 Recommend!
I was happily shocked by the intensity of flavor in this one. Avocado? Amazing. Eggs? Hell yes. A time bit atop cottage cheese? Yup. I just keep finding things to add it to and haven't found one that I didn't love yet.
This product is "Technically" not a scam in the sense that the dimensions for ONE specific item is listed in the description, not only is the picture on the site intentionally using a much smaller box in the pic to make it look bigger, in addition it took 2 weeks until it even shipped. You could say that's my fault for not reading the fine print, but what isn't my fault is the description describing the Kala Namak which is most of the reason I bought this as a 1-3 lbs chunk of salt, what I received was a 8oz box of little pieces, half of the lowest estimates given for it. I would NEVER have bought this product as anything they give you could be picked up from Walmart for 20$. Considering cancelling my 1yr club subscription, I really don't want to but if it all ends up like this then I never would have payed for it, they haven't even sent this months box yet and it's 10 days after the given date. Standard sized pen for reference. The only reason I give it 2 stars and not 1 is because it is my fault for just taking this site at face value.
A house guest gifted us a box of this recently after visiting Portland. I had some purple sourdough and just made a new batch because this was past its prime. I made croutons and dusted them with Bitterman's Parmesan Truffle Salt. Ooooh Mommy! This stuff is the bomb! I hope my guests come to visit again soon on their way back from Portland.
