I’ve never done this myself and I’ve never been able to taste the difference with people who do.
So what’s the point?
I used to because my mom had told me it caused the water to boil sooner. Then I found out how much salt you needed to make a significant difference in the boiling point, and I quit. I’ll salt it for flavor after it’s cooked.
(Caveat: most of the pasta I get served is overcooked and fairly repulsive anyway, so whether or not the cook has added salt to the water or not probably
That said, if I’m eating correctly cooked naked pasta, or pasta with a light sauce, I can taste the difference.
I can’t taste the difference if the pasta is served with a strongly flavoured sauce.
Your mileage, clearly, varies.
When cooking for myself, I prefer the taste of pasta cooked in salted water to pasta cooked with salt added afterwards. I would imagine that there’s some law of chemistry which would explain the difference in flavour.
I salt the water because it seems to make it less likely to foam up and boil over. A bit of oil does this, too, but the oil leaves a residue in the cookpot, so I prefer salt.
I don’t know whether this is real or imagined, though. My cooking habits are full of old wives’ tales and placebo effects.
I thought it was to raise the boiling point? So it doesn’t boil sooner but it boils hotter.
**capybara ** - you are correct (my mom was wrong). Still, the amount of salt needed to make a significant difference would make the pasta inedible - at least for me.
I think I read something like a tablespoon in a pint of water would change the boiling point by 3 or 4 degrees. I make my pasta in a 4-6 quart pot, which would equate to 8-12 tablespoons of salt. That’s a lot of salt.
Osmosis. As the pasta cooks, it will pull in water. if there is salt in the water, it will pull the salt in with it as well. If you just salt it afterwrds, then you just have surface salt on just a few spots where the salt fell, but if you use saled water, then the pasta will have pulled the salty water into it all over.
I forget the relevant equations for colligative properties, but you’re not going to see much effect even if you add so much salt that no one would ever want to eat the pasta. IIRC, a saturated NaCl solution (“brine”) boils at something like 106 centigrade.
I think it’s mostly just a flavor thing, as bouv mentions. I’ve heard many a cook say it’s best to salt food before cooking, so that the salt permiates the food.
I do, only because my mom told me to when I was 12. I never thought about it until now.
I’ve heard many cooks on a variety of TV shows say to salt the water as you will never be able to get the right flavor by salting the sauce. I’ve found this to be true in my experience.
I’ve tried various levels of salt, and also none. And I can’t tell the different.
Anyone who thinks the boiling point is radically affected, think again. Better off finding a house lower down the hill. (Seriously.)
The most important thing with cooking pasta is movement - all the pasta should be moving all the time, so it shouldn’t just be simmering. This ensures that the pasta cooks evenly.
My Italian wife, her Italian Grandmother and the rest of her family would probably have me wacked if I salted the water. Their feeling is that it causes the pasta to dry out. Olive oil is the correct thing to add to the water. It helps the noodles not stick together. There is no other alternative.
Also a big pile of nonsense. Although I understand any reluctance to tell the inlaws this…
I used to when I was young, my Mom told me it helped the water boil quicker. I determined this was not true and I was adding salt for no reason.
It was not for taste, it was an old wives tale.
Jim
[/sub]