# On the omnipresence of food-snobbery in everyday recipes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [December 22, 2023, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007 "2023-12-22T20:28:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/61 "2023-12-23T13:43:34Z")
Can you put Kosher salt on a pork chop? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/62 "2023-12-23T13:45:19Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I doubt that the grain size makes much difference to the density of the salt As already linked, Morton table salt has a conversion chart indicating you need about 25% more coarse kosher salt to equal the same mass as a given volume of table salt. Fine sea salt is a much closer analog, but is also much more expensive than table salt. Maybe it’s the shape of the crystals rather than the size; I’m not a good enough 3-d geometrist to examine the underlying math. But from a cooking perspective there’s a significant difference. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/63 "2023-12-23T13:48:05Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > Let’s say I need you to fill a 15 mL hemisphere with salt. Do you really think you’ll get the same mass if you have cubic crystals that are 1 mm on each side and 10mm? Do you think the mass would converge to some limit as the size of the salt crystal decreased? The mass would indeed converge to some limit as the size of the salt crystal decreased, and even large salt crystals are small enough compared to any measuring container that you can consider yourself to be at that limit. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Ignore the difference at your peril. It’s literally impossible to ignore the difference, because you can’t ignore something that doesn’t exist. There are contexts where the size of salt grain matters, where it’s going to be on the surface of the food as solid grains (like pretzels). But in most recipes, it’s going to be dissolved anyway, in which case the grain size makes no difference whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/64 "2023-12-23T13:54:40Z")
Here’s another conversion, with some interesting information about the shape of the crystals of various salts: [https://www.masterclass.com/articles/salt-conversion-chart](https://www.masterclass.com/articles/salt-conversion-chart) Note that a tablespoon of Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt weighs about 10 grams, whereas a tablespoon of table salt weighs about 19 grams. If you use a tablespoon of table salt in a recipe developed with Diamond kosher, your result will be almost twice as salty. If you’re approaching this from a theoretical standpoint, you may as well start by assuming a spherical cow. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/65 "2023-12-23T13:54:57Z")
You don’t need 3-d geometry, you can see it on 2-d. Take a sheet of cuadriculated paper and color every second square black. At the end half the page will be black in a checkered board pattern. Now do the same with another sheet, but filling in squares of 2x2, leaving squares of 2x2 white. At the end half the page will be black too: same pattern, only bigger squares. Double the length, square the surface, cube the volume for both the chunks and the gaps: constant ratio. I saw the Norton table to you linked to, and as **Chronos** has correctly stated, it is not even consistent. And as **Dr\_Paprika** wrote in post 54 volume is not the way to use salt in a recipe anyway. Salt should be weighed, sparingly used, and adjusted after tasting at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/66 "2023-12-23T14:04:59Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > If you’re approaching this from a theoretical standpoint, you may as well start by assuming a spherical cow. I’d rather assume a spherical cow than swallow this (from your masterclass link): > Kosher salt is traditionally used in the Jewish practice of koshering meats (removing blood by adding salt) sinces [sic!] its larger crystals draw out liquid from meat and are easy to rinse off afterwards. Kosher salt dissolves quickly, it doesn’t have the off flavors and excessive saltiness associated with table salt Table salt is excessively salty in the USA? Bigger crystals dissolve quickly? But when they draw out liquid from meat they don’t dissolve, thus they can be rinsed off easily? ---
**Author:** ![ArtBeforeScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@ArtBeforeScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArtBeforeScience)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/67 "2023-12-23T14:08:29Z")
I would guess that simple recipes used to assume less processed ingredients and that perhaps the overall quality of ingredients has degraded over the decades. So now they have to specify NOT to use crap if you want it to taste better than bad? Even things like baking flour aren’t interchangeable. On sea salt. I prefer pink salt, which to me does taste different, better. I can definitely tell the difference between ordinary table salt and pink salt especially if the food isn’t that salted and I’m using the salt as a table condiment, or in some hyper-concentrated little dressing where you use 3 drops on the salad but it’s intense. Table salt tastes metallic. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/68 "2023-12-23T14:18:47Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I’d rather assume a spherical cow than swallow this (from your masterclass link): Okay, cool. What cite specific to cooking are you relying on to challenge the idea that table salt has significantly greater mass by volume than kosher salt? If all you want to do is make a case in theory, have at it. Meanwhile, here’s a third cite: [https://www.diamondcrystalsalt.com/kosher-salt](https://www.diamondcrystalsalt.com/kosher-salt) > [@](#): > > Diamond Crystal® kosher salt was developed over 130 years ago using a craft evaporation process that creates unique hollow, multifaceted salt crystals. Unlike other kosher salts, Diamond Crystal® does not use additives nor mechanical compaction and it’s still crafted in the same facility it was originally crafted. It even contains 53% less sodium by volume compared to table salt ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/69 "2023-12-23T14:27:52Z")
> [@ArtBeforeScience](#): > > On sea salt. I prefer pink salt, which to me does taste different, better. My gf attended a salt tasting years ago and brought home several purchases. The pink salt was pretty. The truffled salt actually tasted good, but had an infinitesimal amount of truffle and was ridiculously priced. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/70 "2023-12-23T14:46:56Z")
Some salts do have impurities (note: Claims that they’re “more pure” are just plain outright lies) that add subtle colors or flavors. In the right dish, those subtleties can come out, and so if you’re trying to do something just perfect without regard for the cost or difficulty, sometimes those salts can be worth it. Still not usually, but sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/71 "2023-12-23T14:53:05Z")
There are many salts. We talking about the same thing here? “The frogurt is also cursed.” “That’s bad.” “But you get your choice of toppings.” “That’s good!” “The toppings contain potassium benzoate…” ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/72 "2023-12-23T15:06:08Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And before I got this I would make them sometimes with pre-shredded cheese on sale, and they were awful. > I think it is the chemicals added to keep the shreds from turning colors. Actually, just now read the ingredients on a package of shredded and I see that there is annatto added FOR COLOR, plus a mold inhibitor, and tapioca and potato starch added for, I have read elsewhere, anti-clumping purposes. So pre-shredded is super convenient, and unless you are using pretty expensive cheese from a specialty source for your own shredding, I can’t imagine that there is a flavor gain from shredding the plastic-wrapped blocks located mere inches from the pre-shredded on the dairy display. This has given rise to my (original with me, I believe) saying; “as exciting as supermarket cheese”. In any case, there is not a specialty cheese source within in a reasonable drive from here, somewhat beyond the end of the supply chain. Canned tomatoes, I concur - nothing exciting about supermarket tomats, at any season. And EVOO, well, oddly, I have an abundance of choices, and in the quantities I use (not for deep frying, but for EVERYTHING else) it works just fine. Tastes great, too. Oh, and heathiest! Plenty hungy for breakfast, now. Marinara (from a jar) and sweet pepper sauce (ditto) on tostadas, topped with pre-shredded “Mexican” cheese blend and slipped under the broiler to melt the cheese - yeah, it melts just fine. Dan ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/73 "2023-12-23T15:08:49Z")
> [@Dandan](#): > > there is annatto added FOR COLOR, All yellow cheddar has annatto for color, shredded or not. ---
**Author:** ![Tride](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tride/32/13907_2.png) [@Tride](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tride)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/74 "2023-12-23T15:09:34Z")
We just discovered Costco Kirkland Coastal cheddar, and while it’s probably overkill (and a bit greasy) for nachos, it’s pretty amazing, and affordable. Not even close to bagged shredded cheddar! ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/75 "2023-12-23T15:10:56Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Shredded cheese is covered with cellulose to prevent clumping. That interferes with even melting, among other things. Shred your own if you are making pimento cheese! No cellulose in my pre-shredded, and it melts just like cheese. And what other things? Dan ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/76 "2023-12-23T15:18:30Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > That’s because “sea salt” is table salt. It’s from the sea, all right… They just don’t tell you that the sea it’s from dried up millions of years ago and got covered over with other sediments, so it’s now mined. > > right, a million years before huge barges would dump their crap into the oceans … and about 2 billion people having their feces flushed into it … let alone the microplastics … > > but hey … that (clean) traditional mining salt is not good enough for many recipes today, that call for fine sea salt… > > facepalm Jeez, big agree to both of these - when I see a call for “sea salt” I wanna scream “it’s ALL sea salt, dummy, and there’s no pollution in it!”. Dan ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/77 "2023-12-23T15:19:16Z")
I do know that shredded cheese is the only cheese product that doesn’t go moldy in my fridge. Odd, given that you’d expect the high surface area would be more conducive to mold. But whatever it is that they’re doing to make that happen, I’m glad, because the alternative is throwing away a lot of cheese. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/78 "2023-12-23T15:28:19Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > All yellow cheddar has annatto for color, shredded or not. Not all. I’ve had some yellow cheddars that were yellow due to beta carotene in the cow’s diet. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/79 "2023-12-23T15:37:23Z")
Damnit, I knew making a careless blanket statement about cheddar cheese was basically putting up the Qadgop signal. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007/80 "2023-12-23T15:41:44Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Same goes for extra-virgin olive oil. Too often it shows up in a recipe not because it improves the food, but because it makes the recipe writer feel schmancy. I beg to differ. You hit part of it, but a. “User friendly” olive oil is most often crap and adulterated b. Most people only have 1 olive oil, so go for something better than crap c. It really does taste better My pantry has, at last count, 6 different olive oils in it. The grades range from store-brand EVOO to “Holy Shit that’s expensive!” But people like me are outliers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-omnipresence-of-food-snobbery-in-everyday-recipes/995007.md?page=5)