Salt snobs

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Posted at 12:02PM, 18 April 2008 by Graham Holliday - Blogger

Salt snobs, I was listening to 'sleb chef Anthony Bourdain wax disdainfully about salt snobbery that first made me aware of the phenomenon. He was in a well-known restaurant in New York when his course arrived with a selection of eight or nine different salts. He liked the restaurant, but the sodium chloride overdose "was too much". I'm all for chefs pushing boundaries, but salt is salt, no?

The only excuse I can think of for excusing the salt snobs of this world is texture. Fleur de sel is indeed better than table salt because it's rough, but it's still sodium chloride. Sea salt has the whiff of the healthily outdoor about it, but it's still sodium chloride. There is nothing in it that makes it taste any different from any other salt.

So, is salt snobbery a texture thing and nothing else? Or just plain snobbery? Maybe I am all wrong, maybe my taste buds are dysfunctional for not knowing my Murray River Australian Pinks from Himalayan Pinks .

Off the meathook tries (and fails) to convince me that I'm missing out with a recommended way of tasting different salts with advice such as the following, "Get a couple kinds of salt, and definitely include the old Morton's iodized, fine sea salt, one of the colored salts, and a flaky clean salt like fleur de sel or Maldon flake. Make people taste them without knowing what they are and with their eyes closed. Ask them to let the salt sit on their tongue and have them think about what they are tasting. Have the group share thoughts. It's fun and you will be surprised how different they are." Hmm, will I? It's still sodium chloride, innit.

Hey You! steps in to add more evangelical words, "To me a good salt is like a good bottle of wine - you have to choose the correct one to go with the food you are preparing."

Can you honestly equate different salts with wine? At this point I referred to the Salt Primer recommended by the aforementioned Off the meathook. But even that and Slate's extensive taste test fail to convince me. OK, so some salts are iodized, some are not, some are off-colour, some are powdery or fine or rather granular, yet as tarted up as they may appear, they are still sodium chloride

That might be wallet bustingly expensive sodium chloride or the cheap as chips every day variety, but I won't be shelling out for snob salt anytime soon.

Comments

thisediblelife

20 April 2008, 11:40AM
thisediblelife

Mmmm, sounds as pretentious as bottled water sommeliers to me...Surely we use additional salt to stimulate one the five taste sensations our tongues can recognize. Once the sodium chloride is in our mouths, it doesn't matter what colour or shape it is, the job it does is the same. I can see why you might sit a Maldon crystal on top of a chocolate truffle for taste and visual effect but when seasoning your fish and chips? I think not.

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Heuer Family

20 April 2008, 5:11PM
Heuer Family

Actually, there are huge differences in water taste... but I agree: salt is salt, never tasted differently for me.

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TSEARLE

21 April 2008, 1:20PM
TSEARLE

I think salt is salt and i'm careful how much i cook with anyway

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katyrouth

25 April 2008, 4:03PM
katyrouth

I think the point is that some of the more expensive salts AREN'T just sodium chloride; they contain other trace elements depending on where they come from and the method of production. These trace elements then affect the overall flavour of the salt. But TSearle is correct, of course - if you regularly add enough salt to seriously taste the difference you're probably using too much.

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cookrennie

16 May 2008, 6:22PM
cookrennie

...and just when you thought it was safe to go past the sugar aisle confident that all you needed was white, brown or caster, what happened to salt is happening to sugar. I just found a tin of something called "plantation reserve" sugar. Sure, it's in a lovely tin (which is why I bought it in the first place), it smells great and, according to the most ruthless food critics in the world - my 3 kids, is good on porridge but do we really need this sort of thing ?

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elizabeth

11 July 2008, 6:37PM
elizabeth

Please yourself i say, as in all thing we are all different, use whichever salt rocks your boat. What really drives me nuts are the people who insist that good food needs no salt adding at all. As any chef worth his salt (pardon the pun) will tell you, seasoning brings out the flavour of the food and will all taste bland if you don,t. Although I will admit that hubby and i like salt a lot and i do have to be careful not to overdo it, especially when cooking for others.

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