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About Salt - Twitchin Kitten - 04-02-2008
Below is taken from one of my cookbooks, and when I first read it - it changed my mind about salt.
Proper credit for the book and author will be at the end of the article.
I had gotten away from using so much in my cooking and on my table, but found myself using salt as I used to again.
I must admit, the food is much more flavorful and I have switched to SEA SALT exclusively and I can taste the difference between the processed salt we use and it.
I do want to say that anyone on a restricted salt diet on doctors orders should follow their doctors advice and not mine! I am not a doctor.
Salt is a very important ingredient. It brings out the flavors of a dish. In recent years, after the link between high levels of salt consumption and high blood pressure was made, Americans started to use less, and as a result their palates have changed. Today the use much less salt than people do in Europe, but the taste for it still varies from one person to another. Not everyone benefits from a low-salt diet. It is necessary only for people with high blood pressure. Our bodies need salt, more or less of it depending on various factors, in particular the climate where we live. In hot countries, (including parts of America), where people sweat a lot and lose salt, they need more salt and experience weakness and even fainting spells if they lack it.
Rarely do cookbooks in Europe or elsewhere in the world give quantities of salt or pepper in recipes. These are two ingredients that people are expected to gauge how much they want of.
Also, the strength and intensity of flavor of different types of salt vary according to where it originates. It depends on whether the salt has been mined from underground deposits or evaporated from seawater. Salt from the earth, extracted from underground deposits, is far less salty. Sea salt varies depending on which part of the world it comes from, how it has been collected and dried and what minerals it contains. English sea salt, for instance, is saltier than French, which has a distinctive delicate flavor. Table salt usually has additives. Coarse-grain kosher salt does not.
I recommend finely ground sea salt. That is what I use.
It was always said that when cooking you measured with your eye, and it is true that with salt you have to trust your eye. It is usual to start with a little and to add more when you start tasting. Some salads need very little salt, whereas rice and grains need quite a bit if they are not to be terribly bland.
By: Claudia Roden from her book: 'The New Book of Middle Eastern Food'