Salt, Part 1: An Introduction

Salt, Part 1: An Introduction
by Kristin Franklin

So, I managed to perform one of those “I can’t believe I did that” culinary disasters the other day--I over-salted. Now, I think the world of salt, but my zealous attitude toward this amazing mineral isn’t why my Spanish rice demanded a gulp of water after every bite. I didn’t read the labels. Actually, I just wasn’t thinking straight. The can of Hunt's Tomato Sauce and the 8 oz. of Swanson’s Chicken Broth I used for the rice both contained ample amounts of salt. Oops, no need for the extra hefty pinch that I put in!

I knew this, I really did. But my past experiences from culinary school took over my brain: "Rice can take A LOT of salt," I recalled. "It sucks it up, like potatoes!" That's right! Of course, in school we often made rice and potatoes in two- to five-gallon batches, using homemade chicken broth and throwing in salt a fistful at a time. Here, I was making about 3 cups of rice and using an already commercially salted product. Arghhhh! I could have just kicked myself! Well, it wasn’t so bad after we discovered that smothering the rice in Mexican sour cream and fresh tomatoes relieved the palate and actually tasted pretty good.

Now, this culinary glitch got me to thinking a lot about salt. I have heard people say, “I don’t like salt, I never put it in my food.” What these people are actually saying is, “I only use pre-packaged, processed foods when I cook or eat. No salt shaker on my table.” Or, if they are really weird and maybe not human, they are saying, “I absolutely love bland food.” I do understand that people have to watch their salt levels and that palates differ from Joe to Schmo, but c’mon, no salt at all?

Oh, I must make a note here about Raw Foodists. I am excluding them from my finger-pointing since Raw Foodist Bylaw 5-C3PO forbids them from consuming anything processed, such as salt (but they can use celery, which is high in natural sodium). I guess I also have to exclude people with high-blood pressure. I am sorry if I have offended you at any point in this article.

But, these two groups excluded, I think everybody likes salt, even if they don’t know it. What would a salt-free potato chip taste like? “Nothing” or “The oil in which it was fried” would be sufficient answers. How about a pretzel, or an olive without the salty brine (gross!)? Or that thick juicy Prime New York steak you just ruined by putting it on the grill naked, without any gorgeous coarse sea salt and cracked black pepper? Even chocolate-chip cookies are delicious partly because of that ½ teaspoon of salt we all put into that Toll-House batch.

Fact: Salt makes food taste good. Tasty food makes people happy. Therefore, salt makes people happy. See? Salt is a good thing.

Now, obviously a person, or a rice dish, can have too much salt. Too much salt makes people unhappy. See how thin the line is? I have come to realize that salting food, whether made from completely fresh, non-commercial ingredients or from a combo of fresh and commercially salted products, is a technique that requires practice and continual tasting in order to master. An intangible Salt Threshold seems to exist in cooking and food preparation, and this threshold obviously depends on many factors: quantity of food, the cook’s palate, acidity, starch content…ok, this is getting too complicated. How about I just recommend salting a little, then tasting, then salting, then tasting, until you reach that point of bliss when your creation is perfectly balanced, i.e. it has reached its flavor saturation point. If you cross that thin line past which the salt becomes overwhelming, maybe it can be fixed with fresh tomatoes and sour cream, if you’re lucky. I bet that’s how they do it in Mexico. Yeah...

Speaking of ethnic cuisines, salt (or some form of it) is used all over the world in all cuisines imaginable. I do realize this is a very broad statement, but I would bet on the truth of it. Japanese food? Soy sauce. Thai cuisine? Fish sauce. Chinese food? MSG! There are even several different types of salt. Sea salt, Kosher salt, iodized and non-iodized table salt (you know, the navy blue canister with that cute little umbrella-toting girl), the beloved albeit pricy French Fleur de Sel, even red salt from Hawaii, to name a few. You also have your choice of coarseness, from the very fine and difficult to “pinch” table salt that is destined for the shaker, to the coarse sea salt that provides a pleasing salty crunch when it finishes off a cooked dish.

At the French Laundry in Yountville, California--a small and very expensive masterpiece of a restaurant--Chef Thomas Keller has served different salts to accompany certain dishes and to provide a sort of “salt tasting,” if you will. Although we all know Chef Keller is a mad genius of gastronomy (recommended reading for sheer “wow” factor: The French Laundry Cookbook), I can’t help but describe a salt tasting as “so cool.” I think I’ll have to do my own home version of a salt tasting...results coming soon.

Kristin can be reached at kristin@babblog.com.