The whole “15 years to master salt” thing sounds pretty silly, but there are a lot of different types of salt. There’s regular table salt, kosher salt (slightly coarser…makes a huge difference when salting something because the coarse flakes are easier to control. Also tastes different,) coarse sea salt (usually ground or milled,) grey sea salt (moist, minimally processed salt with lots of minerals,) fleur de sel (unprocessed, unwashed sea salt harvested by hand from the Atlantic salt marshes on Ile de Re. Includes lots of minerals, is fantastic for cooking, and has a subtle, earthy, mineral-y flavor,) and probably hundreds of varieties of inland harvested specialty salt (such as Dead Sea salt, Great Salt Lake salt, and minimally processed salts from geological formations like salt domes that have particular local flavors because of differing mineral contents. These last can be, depending on chemistry, be anything from pure white to brown to pink, green, blue, or any color in between.)
Depending on what flavors you’re trying to enhance, you could make the whole salting thing pretty intense…but for 99.9999% of cases, one or two will do just fine. I use kosher salt and fleur de sel.
This is very true. I consider myself a pretty good cook, and I’m extremely conscious of the salt level when I eat my own food. Undersalt by even a small amount and there’s a subtle blandness; oversalt just slightly and you start to lose the natural flavor of the food to the saltiness. When the level of salt is absolutely perfect, you know it; the food fairly sparkles on your taste buds. Yeah, Iron Chef does camp things up a fair amount, but the point about salt mastery is absolutely solid.
Oh, and I’m the mayor of maize, so I know whereof I speak.
Iron Chef did incorporate a lot of pomp and flamboyance, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the chefs really do take some of these things seriously. Cooking is a serious art form especially in Japan, nearly to the extent of religion or sex (or both!)
One of the most memorable Iron Chef moments was a match between I.C. Morimoto and Bobby Flay. At the end of the battle, Flay stood up on the cutting board and pumped his arms in the air to get the audience cheering. Morimoto was FURIOUS. He said, “He stood on the cutting board! That’s an insult to us! Knives and cutting boards are sacred to us! He’s not a real chef, he should be disqualified!”
Later they held a rematch, and this time, Flay made a big show of carefully removing the board before standing directly on the counter. Morimoto stared at him with a look that could melt ice; then he shook his head, and grabbed a bottle of sake.
Thce cynic in me would say they also wanted to hype up incoming challengers as super-specialists since the quality and reputation of challengers in the earliest seasons was nothing special (top-notch chefs wouldn’t touch Iron Chef until it became a big hit), but there is a trend towards specialization in Japanese professional cooking, and an intense narrow focus on one aspect of a craft is admirable in japanese society. I’ve eaten at noodle joints that serve only soba and not udon (and vice versa). I’ve eaten at places where you don’t need a menu becasue they offer only one or two dishes.
This comment is an insight into the exacting and extreme sense of technicality, perfection, and aesthetic within Japanese artisinal pursuits. Although “salt skills” seem rather arbitrary and simple, it is often the most basic that is raised to artisanal levels within Japanese culture. An entire system, with schools of technique and apprenticeship have arisen in Japan for something as seemingly mundane and simple as serving tea. It is all very zen, to use a cliche.
The mentor’s comment is also a pretty typical example of Sempai/Kohei (Senior/Junior) relations- there is always room for improvement, and it’s best to keep your junior humble and working towards real greatness and perfection.
