So, I was watching “Iron Chef” and the commentator mentioned that the challenger’s mentor said that the challenger had been cooking for 15 years and he still felt he hadn’t mastered salt.
And I’m thinking, "What a dingus. Fifteen years to master salt? Does he pick it up and think, “Ok, do I salt the fork or the meat or the napkins? I never can figure that out!” God forbid he should be given something COMPLEX to master, like fried rice.
I figured it was just Japanese culinary bullstuff. But I was wondering if there wasn’t some Orien … Asian, I meant Asian! … tal technique or school or something which provides some kind of justification, however silly, for spending over a decade getting that whole “salt” thing down.
And don’t try to tell me about the fisherman’s apprentice who spent three years before he could master bait. I’m WAAAAAAY ahead of you.
I think I remember that episode. Didn’t they call him something like the “Sorceror of Salt?” He had like all these different kinds of salt like regualr salt and sea salt and…I don’t remember but he had a bunch of different kinds. I seem to remember that one of them was some kind of “moon salt” that was sea salt harvested only under the light of a full moon. I can’t believe that it tastes any different than salt gathered any other time (or that I would personally be able to tell it from Morton’s) but they were taking it all very seriously. If there’s really any difference between all those different kinds of salt and salting strategies I’m sure it’s much too subtle for me.
Yeah, that’s right, sorcerer of salt … had the sea salt, the regular salt, the moon salt, the “distilled from the sweat from a Balinese temple dancer’s upper thigh” salt …
I’m not a professional chef, and I didn’t see the episode, so I can’t really comment very well… but since so much of Iron Chef is tongue in cheek, might they be exaggerating a tad?
Though I suppose when you get right down to it, iodized salt and sea salt don’t have the same taste, and diet salt – potassium chloride or whatever that rank crap is – tastes different from all of them. I suppose in ten years of cooking I haven’t mastered salt, since I never use anything but generic supermarket brand.
Actually, using salt well as a chef or cook is a pretty subtle thing that can be hard to get right. Salt is a potent flavor enhancer, and used well can really make an amazing difference to your dish. Many home cooks (like myself) probably don’t use as much salt as they should because of the fear of oversalting the dish - you can always add more later, right? Better to let the individuals salt it to their own preference at the table later, right? However, salt added later might not punch up the flavor as it would had you added it during the cooking process.
An excellent chef pays attention to these things, and will intend for the dish to be perfectly seasoned when it’s plated - no additional salt should be necessary when you’re eating it. But getting to that point takes time and sensitivity. I’m not surprised he said that - salt is definitely hard to master.
The Japanese version of Iron Chef was always a mixture of reality and camp. (I remember feeling like an idiot when I first read that “Chairman Kaga” wasn’t a real eccentric billionaire). One of the running schticks of the show was to absurdly exaggerate the expertise of individual challengers in a given ingredient or technizque. They were always given nicknames like the “Wizard of Seaweed,” the “Sultan of Saki,” the “Conjurer of Pasta,” “the Magician of Toast.”
I think that this kind of thing was probably based on a real bit of expertise or trademark ingredient of these chefs but that their level of ability with them was hyped up to the ceiling for entertainment purposes. The salt guy probably was known for using a variety of different kinds of salt so he became the “Socereor of Salt” for the purpose of the show. A little bit of reality, a lot of “show.”