So much salt

"If food isn't salted properly, no amount of fancy cooking techniques or garnishes will make up for it. Without salt, unpleasant tastes are more perceptible and pleasant ones less so. Though in general the absence of salt in food is deeply regrettable, its overt presence is equally unwelcome: food should be salty, it should be salted." Samin Nosrat

I haven't quite finished Samin Nosrat's book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat as yet, but I have finished the 'educational' bit. Now I'm on to recipes and I will do something further on that when I have finished. And I know that I have mentioned her emphasis on salt before, but I am returning to it, because I have been churning over her massive - to my mind - use of salt in my mind on and off since reading it. Then just the other day I watched a bit of a Sylvia Colloca cooking show on the television and there she was throwing in a massive handful of salt into her pot of pasta. Even when I was salting food as I cooked I never ever threw in large amounts. And these days I never use it other than in baking and for things like gravlax. So I am thinking about it again. Am I missing something? Is there something wrong with my tastebuds?

In fact now that I think about it - in the brief moments of an old The Chef and the Cook show that I watched yesterday Maggie Beer put an inordinate amount - again to my mind - into some damper that she was making. So they all seem to do it.

So I investigated a tiny bit more today - mostly I have to say from the admirable The Guardian and found that most chefs do in fact use massive amounts. As one chef admitted:

"Correct seasoning to a chef is as much salt as you can put in without it tasting too salty," Jacob Kennedy

He added that this was why they all died young. I don't know if he was joking. So on the one hand we have the chefs - even those who are supposed to be promoting healthy and fresh, throwing in handfuls of the stuff, and on the other we have the health police telling us we only need one teaspoonful a day. Although we must have that.

"Complete abstinence from salt has not been found possible even in the most austere monastic orders." New Larousse Gastronomique

Of course you don't have to get this salt from salt itself - there are salty foods like anchovies and capers and so on, and there is also a natural amount of salt in foods anyway - more in meat and fish, massive amounts in cheese, but that is manufactured not natural and also there is some in vegetables. And of course no end of processed foods contain vast quantities of salt. However:

"Boiling vegetables in a large quantity of water deprives them of a large part of their mineral salts" New Larousse Gastronomique

Which is why, according to the chefs you need to salt water in which you are cooking vegetables. You need to balance the salt being taken out of the vegetables with the salt in the water. And it makes them keep their colour too. According to the New Larousse Gastronomique, this is borne out in the animal world:

"It may be noted that the higher the vegetable content of the diet, the greater is the need of salt. This is true among animals as well; herbivorous creatures are greedy for salt but carnivorous animals have no desire for it."

But just to prove that you must never make sweeping generalisations I found this:

"there are rules of thumb, such as: never cook peas and broad beans in salted water unless you prefer their skin hard and cracked. And don't salt mushrooms before they're cooked, unless you actually want them limp and shrivelled." Amy Fleming - The Guardian

But do salt courgettes and eggplants before cooking, to squeeze out the extra moisture. Mind you some cooks seem to suggest that this is no longer necessary.

"Salt has amazing properties. It enhances flavours but also tones down bitterness. It can preserve an ingredient almost indefinitely, or season it in the lightest way, so it can be served at its peak." Simon Lamb - River Cottage A-Z

Almost all of the brief articles I read seemed to make the same point about bitterness - add some salt to something bitter - like coffee and the flavour improves. It also balances and improves sweetness - think salted caramel and a pinch of salt added to things like strawberries. Salt enhances, balances and binds flavours without dominating. Well that's what they say. And you have to do it whilst you are cooking not at the table. At the table is too late.

"salt added at the table becomes the dominant flavour, doesn't bind the other tastes together and leaves you with a salty aftertaste." Jeffrey Steingarten

All of which means tasting and adjusting - another thing that everyone emphasised. Taste, taste, taste.

"there is no better guide in the kitchen that thoughtful tasting and that nothing is more important to taste thoughtfully for than salt." Samin Nosrat

But then you come to things like pasta and polenta and meat and suddenly you are into massive amounts:

"With time, I learned that a huge pot of pasta water required three handfuls to start. I figured out that when I seasoned chickens for the spit, it should look like a light snowstorm had fallen over the butchering table." Samin Nosrat

Sylvia Colloca only put a handful of salt into her pasta, but to be fair to Samin Nosrat the was probably talking restaurant sized pots. But still a handful of salt! I just cannot bring myself to do it. After all it's not like vegetables that are losing their nutrients into the water. Pasta is a bland thing. Does it have much taste in and of itself? Well I fear I have now offended the whole foodie world, because of course it must have - otherwise why would you go on about brands of pasta?

So how much salt should you use for everything? Here are Samin Nosrat's suggestions in the form of a table, although she does say that it is a personal thing and you should taste yourself. Start with small amounts, add a bit more and taste as you go, until you get what she calls 'zing'.

And note, that if you are a gourmet you will be able to notice a difference according to what kind of salt you are using. But I think I have spoken about that before too.

I'm still not sure that I am brave enough to revert to adding salt to my pasta or my vegetables, unless there is a particular reason for doing so that is explained to me in the recipe. I think I'm just doomed to not being a great cook - just a slightly above average one. But that's OK.

"A talent for cooking could almost be boiled down to the ability to season, the knack of salting" Kerstin Rodgers - The Guardian

So I think I'm doomed to failure.

It's very lovely looking stuff though, and you certainly can't eat chips without it - but then you shouldn't eat chips either.

And did I say that if you are a proper cook you don't use a shaker, or even a grinder, you put your salt in a bowl, so that you can scoop out those handfuls.