The nickname for salt, white gold, scarcely honors its value. Here’s a substance so pale-often invisible-yet it colors everything we eat. The seasoning begins in ocean waters where fish thrive, continues with brining, where salt suspends meat and vegetables in time, and finally rests with the sprinkling we give to so much food.
Salt took a hit when excess sodium was named the villain in many cases of hypertension, and home cooks began to eye it with suspicion. But no chef in the world would cook without it.
Increasingly, food professionals and amateur cooks are shaking off the table salt habit, not to cut down on the stuff, but to expand their seasoning sensibility with kosher and sea salts.
In the past few years, the market for imported specialty salts, judged by many to be less processed and to have a fuller flavor, has increased, according to Ron Tanner of the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. At upscale supermarkets, the French brand Baleine’s Sel de Mer or Maldon sea salt from England are bumping boxes with that American classic, Morton, and customers are willing to pay up to a dollar more for the difference.
“We are seeing more of it at the (trade shows),” Tanner says. “Especially now that recipes are getting more sophisticated and call for kosher or sea salt.”
When a restaurant makes the switch to specialty salt in its kitchen, the cost for the condiment can soar to $10,000 a year, says chef Paul Bartolotta of Spiaggia.
Why is it worth it? Well, to serious cooks, what you salt with, how you salt and when you salt are essential techniques.
“Salt is fundamental because it demonstrates the chef’s ability to season ingredients to the right degree,” Bartolotta says. “It can be a flavor enhancer when cooked into food, or an ingredient when you put it on top of food.”
How to salt food was the first thing Dominique Tougne, executive chef of Bistro 110, learned in cooking school.
“After we put salt in water for boiling, we had to take a spoon and drink it to gauge the flavor,” Tougne says. “For me, this is what a good cook learns in the beginning.”
Even in chili country, where heat is the prized sensation, salt is an essential, says Stephan Pyles of Star Canyon restaurant in Dallas.
“Salt is the one thing that all the great cuisines of the world have in common,” Pyles says. “If you have a really great meal, they season it perfectly with salt. If salt isn’t used properly, you don’t get that roundness of flavor; there’s something unfinished about it.”
Pyles credits his appreciation for the edible crystals to his professional training in France. Classical cooking techniques certainly don’t shy away from salt.
But long before seasoning became an art, salt was a necessity.
As a preservative that draws moisture from food, salt kept meats and fish safe to eat when there was no refrigeration. Overloading food with salt, as in pickling or curing, leaves bacteria and molds “unable to do their job,” says Harold McGee, author of “The Curious Cook.”
At a time when food was difficult to acquire in the first place, salt made a huge difference to the lives of civilized people. And because the substance was hard to mine and transport, the trade of salt was an important business. Soldiers in ancient Rome were, indeed, paid in salt; their “salt money” or salarium, is where we get the word “salary.”
Shortages, caused by war, blocked trade routes or mining problems, have forced people to turn to unusual sources. Southerners were so desperate for salt during the Civil War that many scraped the dirt from smokehouse floors hoping to extract the mineral, Mary Elizabeth Massey writes in her 1952 book “Ersatz in the Confederacy.”
Historian Margaret Visser dates the cultivation of salt to the era when man began supplementing a diet of mostly meat (muscles and blood are a natural source of salt) with vegetables, which are less rich in sodium. In “Much Depends on Dinner,” Visser writes that this is why Eskimos, who live in a freezing climate and traditionally subsisted on animal protein, did not use salt until the modern era.
The legacy of salt in so many cultures is still on the menu: waxy fillets of salt cod, wafer-thin slices of German Westphalian ham or Virginia’s Smithfield ham, smoked salmon from Norway, preserved eggs from China, duck confit in France and pickled vegetables from Korea and Japan.
Even diners who won’t add salt to a finished dish appreciate the support it gives to chocolate candy and the controlled rise it gives to bread dough.
Gary Beauchamp, director of Monell Chemical Senses Center, a smell and taste research institute in Philadelphia, says salt helps to suppress bitterness, which in turn heightens sweetness in vegetables.
But that’s the clinical explanation. All we know is that rubbing soft butter over warm corn on the cob is a summer pleasure we look forward to all year, and it would never be as perfect if salt–table, or kosher, or sea salt, if you choose–didn’t shake down over all, crystals winking in the light, and slowly melt.
With each bite, we dissolve along with it.
SALTS OF THE EARTH
Ton for ton, food salt is just a small part of the mining efforts that also produce salt for highways and chemical processes. But the $187 million in sales of dietary salt last year is still a significant part of the industry.
Salt, a combination of the elements sodium and chlorine, can come from the land or the sea, but most of what we consume-table salt and the bulk salt used in commercial food preparation-is produced through an evaporating process in which two holes are drilled into a salt deposit on land. Water goes into one hole, creating a brine, which is forced out the second hole. The brine is heated to evaporate the water, and the remaining salt is ready to eat.
But many professional cooks are passing over such manufactured salts in favor of those evaporated by solar methods from sea water. One reason given is that the commercial heating destroys some of the flavor and that additives, used to prevent caking, can change the flavor. Another is that salt from sea water may have more nutrients.
“Water in different parts of the world gives you different salt,” says Andy Briscoe of the Salt Institute.”If you get salt from the Dead Sea and the ocean around Australia, they won’t have the same flavor.”
If you set up your own taste test at home, with a sampling of table salt, kosher salt and sea salt, it is possible to tell them apart.
It will also be apparent, from the different grain sizes, that they shouldn’t be used interchangeably when measuring for a recipe; a tablespoon of fine-grained table salt will supply a lot more saltiness than a tablespoon of coarse-grained kosher or sea salt.
Kosher salt: Large-grained salt that’s a mixture of salt and yellow prussiate of soda, an anti-caking agent. Kosher salt is good to add to long-cooking foods, such as meats, soups and stews.
Pickling salt: Very fine-grained salt without additives that would cloud the brine.
Rock salt: Less refined, coarse salt that’s usually used to line plates of baked shellfish or added to pretzels or to ice for hand-cranked ice cream.
Salt alternatives: For consumers on low-sodium diets, some producers add potassium, calcium or magnesium to reduce the amount of sodium in the product.
Sea salt: Pure salt from sea water. The evaporation process is more costly than salt mined from the ground. To preserve its aromatic qualities, sea salt should be used in recipes with little cooking time.
Table salt: A mixture of salt and calcium silicate, a calcium supplement for added nutrients. Many are supplemented with iodine, a vital trace mineral that landlocked populations usually lack.
A TASTE FOR SALT
“The loving of it is hard-wired into the brain,” says Linda Bartoshuk, a professor at the Yale University School of Medicine who specializes in smell and taste research. “And that love is attached to our need for it.”
Salt cravings are an automatic part of human and animal biology because sodium is a key factor in making the nervous system work. An improper balance of sodium in the body, due to disease or extremely poor diet, can be fatal.
In our current food culture, that’s unlikely. Our daily sodium requirements are about 500 milligrams, and you can get about four times that amount in 1 teaspoon of salt.
Still, health problems or blood loss, such as that during childbirth, can trigger the need to ingest more sodium, Bartoshuk says. “It may be that for an animal mother licking her pups, this is another way to retrieve salt.”
Meat carries enough sodium, but animals that eat only plants seem to have developed a special sensory system that doesn’t need it, according to Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia.
Taste buds that detect salt are no more dominant in the mouth than other senses, researchers say. But humans automatically appreciate salt by 4 to 6 months of age. Young children, as their tastes mature, tend to enjoy saltier foods than do adults.
“Even if parents keep salt out of the diet of a child, the child will develop a taste for it,” Bartoshuk says.
The need for adequate salt is basic, she adds, but modern diets, made up of so much processed, sodium-heavy food, may have thrown our instincts out of whack. As diners become more accustomed to a high level of sodium in all foods, they tend to increase the amount of salt added to foods.
Still, an extreme craving for salt may indicate disease, and should be investigated by a doctor.
WHEN TO SALT AND WHY
“Good food is always wasted
On those who salt before they’ve tasted.”
Want to make a chef’s blood pressure rise? Add salt to his food-before you’ve had a bite of it.
There’s truth to the kitchen saying above. Great chefs-and good home cooks-know that salting food is done throughout a recipe; if everything is prepared just right, it won’t need that final shake at the table. Yet lots of diners grab a salt shaker and start crystallizing their dinner without tasting it first.
“Salt flavors better when added early in the cooking process,” says cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum. “Salt doesn’t dissolve fully if added at the end, and then you just taste the salt instead of the food.”
“A good chef’s dish should come out to the table completely seasoned,” agrees Dallas chef Stephan Pyles. “I would love to not even have salt shakers on the table.”
It’s not just a matter of ego. Food professionals trust salt to add subtle layers of flavor when added to the water for boiling vegetables or pasta, sprinkled on a steak before it hits the grill or giving savor to a sauce.
And because salt is a better conductor of heat than air, it is sometimes used to form a crust around meat or fish to heat the food and keep it moist. This method also distributes an even salt flavor throughout the dish.
There are other ways salt works its magic in the kitchen:
It draws bitterness from vegetables. Because salt attracts moisture (which is why salt shakers clump up on a humid day), ingredients such as eggplant and cucumbers are often sliced and salted to bring bitter juices to the surface. The salt is then wiped off before cooking.
It seasons boiled ingredients. Adding salt to boiling water gives flavor to pasta and vegetables without overpowering them with saltiness. Salt also raises the boiling point of water, according to “Cooking A to Z,” “enabling the vegetables to cook more quickly and therefore better retain color and nutritive value.”
Pasta cooked in salted boiling water has much more flavor than if salted upon serving. In soups and stews, however, salt should be added no sooner than halfway during cooking to allow other flavors to assert themselves first.
Salt enhances the flavors of meat and fish. There is some back and forth on when salt should be added to meat. Seasoning too far in advance of cooking can dry it, because salt draws out the moisture. On the other hand, author Harold McGee says, a short resting time after salting “is good in that it brings out a minimal amount of juice to the surface and helps to concentrate the flavor.” Meat that is cooked right after preparation should not suffer dryness.
Seafood needs to be seasoned differently. “If it’s a strong-flavored fish you want to add higher amounts of salt,” Spiaggia chef Paul Bartolotta says. “Or if it’s a really bland fish like cod.” Sweeter, more delicate seafood such as shrimp and scallops needs a lighter hand. “Taste as you go,” he says. “Experiment.”
And when doling salt out, Bartolotta recommends holding your clenched fingers flat and parallel to the floor, as if tossing a Frisbee, and casting the salt wide over the surface. Dropping salt straight down on top of food puts too much in one area.
Salt can give balance to sugar. “Salt makes the flavors more pronounced,” San Francisco baking expert Flo Braker says. “Caramel doesn’t taste like caramel unless it has salt.”
Consider how much better ice cream tastes when topped with a faintly salty butterscotch sauce or chopped peanuts.
Beranbaum, who wrote “The Cake Bible,” agrees. “Things are flat without salt, and sweet things without salt are cloying and lack dimension.”
SALTY RECIPES: FISH BAKED IN COARSE SALT
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Adapted from “Simply French,” by Patricia Wells.
1 whole fish, about 3 pounds, such as red snapper or striped bass, boned, cleaned
7 to 8 cups coarse sea or kosher salt
Extra-virgin olive oil, fresh lemon wedges
1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Rinse fish and pat dry. Evenly spread 1 cup of the salt in an oval baking dish, about 8 1/2 by 14 inches. Place the fish on top of the salt and pour the remaining salt over the fish to completely cover it from head to tail. It should look as though you have a baking dish mounded with nothing but salt. (If the fish is large, there’s a chance the tail fin will extend outside dish; that’s OK.)
2. Place dish in center of oven; bake 40 minutes, or until instant-read thermometer inserted in thickest part of fish reads 130 degrees. (Adjust baking time by about 5 minutes either way for each 1/2 pound of fish.)
3. Remove dish from oven. Brush away as much salt as possible from fish. Gently scrape skin from top of fish, using the blade of a sharp knife; discard skin. Gently remove top fillet in neat pieces, using 2 large spoons; transfer to two warmed dinner plates. Carefully remove center bones; discard. Remove bottom fillet in pieces and transfer to the two other warmed dinner plates.
4. Serve, passing a cruet of olive oil and a bowl of lemon wedges for seasoning.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories …… 155 Fat …………… 2 g Cholesterol .. 55 mg
Sodium …… 1,230 mg Carbohydrates .. 0 g Protein ……. 31 g
SPICY REFRIGERATOR PICKLES
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Chilling time: Overnight
Cooking time: 2 minutes
Yield: 3 pints
Adapted from Marcia Adams’ “New Recipes From Quilt Country.”
7 cups unpeeled pickling cucumbers (such as Kirby), whole or thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons pickling or kosher salt (not iodized)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1/4 teaspoon each: coarsely ground black pepper, red pepper flakes
9 whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
1. Mix cucumbers, onion and salt in large bowl; cover and refrigerate overnight.
2. Drain liquid and discard; set aside cucumbers. Mix sugar, vinegar, celery seeds, pepper, red pepper flakes, cloves and cinnamon sticks in a small saucepan over high heat. Heat to a boil and cook 1 minute, then set aside to cool. When cool, remove cinnamon sticks and reserve. Pour liquid over cucumber mixture.
3. Transfer to clean jars or other containers and add a cinnamon stick to each jar. Add enough of the remaining liquid to fill each jar. Cover and refrigerate at least 24 hours before serving.
Nutrition information per ounce (based on commercial sweet pickles):
Calories …….. 30 Fat ………… 0 g Cholesterol .. 0 mg
Sodium …… 200 mg Carbohydrates .. 8 g Protein ……. 0 g
