# Cooking question: Kosher salt?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 31, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695 "2002-07-31T15:12:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SteverinoAlaReno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteverinoAlaReno)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/1 "2002-07-31T15:12:29Z")
I was watching “Good Eats” the other day, and the premise of this particular episode had the host stranded on a tropical island, where he demonstrated all sorts of good things you can cook should you happen to be in a similar situation.
At one point, he commented that he didn’t have kosher salt, so regular sea salt would have to do. (He then salted pieces of pork, so the apparent incongruity of wanting to use koser salt on pork made me take notice.)
I fancy myself as a decent cook, but I’ve never had occasion to insist on kosher salt, nor do I understand why I should. Is there a difference between kosher salt and your regular, run-of-the-mill salt? If so, in what uses would one be better than the other?
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### Author:  [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/2 "2002-07-31T15:26:53Z")
Well, this is taken from Alton Brown’s own book (Alton is the host of Good Eats), but I am an Alton-phile, so neener:
> [@](#):
>
> **Originally written in I’m Just Here For the Food**
>
> Kosher salt tastes better on food. The fact that kosher salt doesn’t contain any additives may be a factor, but I suspect it has more to do with timing. Because kosher salt flakes are irregularly shaped and have a very low surface to mass ratio, they dissolve slowly, releasing their flavor like a time-release medicine. … Even if flavor wasn’t an issue, I’d still prefer kosher to table salt beause it is controllable. Since it’s composed of irregularly shaped flakes, you can actually pinch kosher salt between your fingers and hold it there. … Although kosher flakes are quite large, the crystals that make them up are actually very fine, so when a flake of kosher salt hits the moist surface of a food, it dissolves quickly and spreads out across a wider area. (pg. 21)
I like sea salt, myself, but kosher is a very close second. I can’t even stand regular table salt now, it tastes far too metallic to me.
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### Author:  [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/3 "2002-07-31T15:59:45Z")
Just to clear this up a bit:
“Kosher salt” is a bit of a misnomer. A better term would be _kashering_ salt.
Salt is kosher, period. Kosher salt is so called because it is used in the process of draining the blood from meat (part of the process that renders meat kosher). However, any form of NaCl is kosher, even if it’s not “kosher salt.”
Zev Steinhardt
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### Author:  [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/4 "2002-07-31T16:23:33Z")
Julia Child says that “salt is salt”. Use whatever salt you like, all salt is virtually the same chemically, therefore indistinguishable. You shouldn’t be able to taste the difference.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/5 "2002-07-31T16:36:00Z")
Well, what about the iodine and other additives in table salt?
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### Author:  [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/6 "2002-07-31T17:07:20Z")
I say that’s bunk (now I call forth the wrath of Julia Child to destroy me and my family). Sea salt tastes different compared to table salt, which tastes different compared to kosher salt, which tastes different compared to etc etc.
Sure they have the salty salt taste in common, but there’s differences between them. In my first post (and I’d like to add here “woohoo! I got to answer a GQ post first!”), I mentioned that I can’t stand table salt anymore. It’s true, it tastes very metallic and gross, like I’m chewing on a mouthful of iron and whatnot. I compare that to the sea salt that our household usually uses, which is much lighter and has a crisper salty taste with no other icky flavours.
And yes, I live in a house that has about 5 different kinds of salt. I guess we’re just salt snobs here. 😛
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### Author:  [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/7 "2002-07-31T17:26:05Z")
I had this exact same question while watching Good Eats… He always uses kosher salt!
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/8 "2002-07-31T17:29:20Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by zweisamkeit \*
> \*\*I say that’s bunk (now I call forth the wrath of Julia Child to destroy me and my family). Sea salt tastes different compared to table salt, which tastes different compared to kosher salt, which tastes different compared to etc etc.
> \*\*
You’re deluded. Sea salt is no different from table salt.
Where do you think Morton’s gets its salt from? Salt mines. And what are salt mines? Sea salt. Sure, it’s old, but it’s almost pure sodium chloride, so there’s nothing to deteriorate. Salt is, essentially, rock. (For proof, consider this: [Redmond Real Salt](http://www.realsalt.com/) hypes its product as “sea salt mined in central Utah” – the same thing Morton has been selling for years at a tenth the cost).
BTW, anything labeled as salt must, by U.S. law, be the same chemical composition and the same percentage sodium chloride (I believe the percentage is close to, if not equal to, 99%). So the difference in chemical composition is negligible.
Sea salt is essentially a marketing ploy to trick those who know nothing about chemistry into paying $6.99 (plus buying one of those nifty mills\*) for the same substance they can pick up for less than 50 cents.
Now, there are differences in granularity, but once the salt is dissoved (which is has to do in order to be tasted) sodium chloride is sodium chloride is sodium chloride. See Robert Wolke’s [What Einstein Didn’t Know](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440508568/qid=1028135361/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-0792203-7765436) for a discussion of this issue.
Now the granularity of kosher salt does make it easier to sprinkle on food. But the taste difference can only be noticed by those refined people who don’t think the emperor is walking around naked.
\*Talk about idiotic – the only difference between salt is the size of the grains, and, with a mill, you can make your salt _the same size as table salt_.:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/9 "2002-07-31T17:30:54Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I mentioned that I can’t stand table salt anymore. It’s true, it tastes very metallic and gross, like I’m chewing on a mouthful of iron and whatnot. I compare that to the sea salt that our household usually uses, which is much lighter and has a crisper salty taste with no other icky flavours.
That’s ironic. Ordinary table salt, even with the iodine and other additives, is very nearly pure sodium chloride, and I thing that the iodine is in the form of sodium iodide, so there aren’t any other metals present at all. Sea salt, on the other hand, is primarily NaCl, but can have pretty much any ions at all in it. At the minimum, I’d imagine that there’s sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chlorine, fluorine, and iodine in measureable amounts.
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### Author:  [@HotovecSE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HotovecSE)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/10 "2002-07-31T17:45:07Z")
I’ve never used any salt other than the normal “Morton” stuff so I can’t comment on the flavor of Kosher/sea salt. But I find the following curious.
The “expert” states:
“[Kosher salt flakes] they dissolve slowly, releasing their flavor like a time-release medicine.”
and later in the same quote:
"kosher salt hits the moist surface of a food, it dissolves quickly and spreads out across a wider area. "
So which is is??
Makes me think he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about and is just blowing smoke…
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/11 "2002-07-31T17:59:02Z")
The principal difference I’ve found is that kosher salt is much easier to sprinkle over food because it doesn’t get stuck to your fingers as much.
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### Author:  [@SteverinoAlaReno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteverinoAlaReno)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/12 "2002-07-31T22:29:25Z")
Thank you all for your replies!
I don’t salt food on my plate, the only time I use salt is in cooking or baking. So I doubt I’d be able to tell the difference between various types of salt. I don’t sprinkle salt by hand, that’s what my shaker is for :), so the granularity wouldn’t mean anything to me (well, maybe smaller granules would come out of the shaker a bit more easily).
And I’m inclined to agree with Reality Chuck: NaCl is NaCl, and any slight variations in trace ingredients won’t matter – especially when you consider just how small the amount of salt used is compared to the dish as a whole.
Zweisamkeit, I’ll send you a big kudo for being the first to answer. And it doesn’t matter to me that you’re a fan of Alton, I don’t care much one way or the other about him. (My personal favorite has always been James Beard, but he’s been dead for some 18 years now.)
Finally, Zev, thank you for the clarification. I had thought that any salt would be kosher, and was puzzled over the distinction.
The question’s answered…but we can argue over which is better in IMHO
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### Author:  [@Shiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shiva)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2002, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/13 "2002-07-31T22:29:38Z")
Well, I suppose one could actually sit down and taste iodized table salt alongside kosher salt. My subjective experiment results follow:
Table salt = Metallic and salty
Kosher salt = Salty
Kids, try this at home! (Be sure an adult helps you though).
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### Author:  [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/14 "2002-08-01T00:31:14Z")
This seems to come up every [once in a while.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120230)
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### Author:  [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2002, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooking-question-kosher-salt/121695/15 "2002-08-01T02:28:24Z")
Most chefs use kosher salt because it is easier to handle by hand. It allows a chef greater control than a table salt (not so easily handled, so you need a shaker) or sea salt (generally too big right out of the box).
Salts taste different because they have different trace elements. I believe sea salt is the closest to NaCl, if not pure and table salt the furthest (but still on the order of 98% plus NaCl). My book is three flights below and I’m lazy, so that’s the best I can give you.