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. |
