He accidentally the whole thing!
Sea salts do give different flavor experience to dishes. Instead of just sodium chloride, we also get the potassium chloride flourish, the ammonium chloride rush, the calcium chloride tingle, to name a few.
And our cells did evolve in the presence of and under the influence of more salts than just sodium chloride. So it’s hardly surprising that we’d make use of more than just sodium chloride to fulfill our metabolic needs for mineral ions and to please our palates.
However, the claims for many of these sea salts do go rather too far.
QtM, who loves his ammonium chloride licorice drops.
Yeah, sal ammoniac is quite distinct. Nobody is going to mistake it for sodium chloride. In terms of sodium-chloride salts, I usually only use Kosher salt, pickling salt, and sea salt (with one exception below). The kind I choose depends on my application and how large I want the grains to be. Otherwise, they pretty much taste the same.
Smoked salt, which I don’t use but I have tasted, is quite different in that, well, it tastes like smoke. It makes sense to be particular about that as an ingredient as it’s not at all the same flavorwise as table salt.
I do also use something called “black salt,” or “kala namak.” This is also a very, very distinct tasting and smelling salt, and no one would have difficulty identifying it by taste. It is very eggy. It is primarily sodium chloride, but it contrains traces of sulfurous compounds in it. When I say “very eggy” I don’t mean a vague hint of sulfur somewhere in the background. I mean, when I taste it, it reminds me of hard boiled eggs or egg salad.
I believe any other flavors detectable in sea salt besides NaCl probably come from fish and whale poop.
You wish. Ever seen fish spawn?
I’ll concede that table/cooking salt with trace elements can add interesting flavors, but far too many claims for special salts are based on “health” and “purity.” I fail to see how whale poop, fish cum or toxic metals apply to either.
And I get giggling fits when I encounter a salt grinder.
Bacon. I like it just fine, but enough already!
Good point. It seems we’re past the apex of the bacon craze, but it’s still out there. I like bacon, but it really is a strong flavor and it doesn’t need to be in every goddamned thing.
I nominate the incredibly small portions that are popular at the fancy places. The plate looks so visibly empty, that the chef has to artfully dribble lines of sauce onto it, to fill up all the empty real estate.
It’s not quite over. In fact, it has a whole TV show dedicated to it.
I actually wish portions were smaller at most restaurants. I know I can pack it up and take it home, but I tend to eat everything that’s put in front of me, so I end up consuming a meal that is really for 2 or 3 people. I’ve honestly never been to a “fancy place” and not felt full by the time I left.
Good god, no. How much longer will it last?
I’ll grant that some salts go rather overboard with their claims. But it’s still pretty hard to get any sillier than kopi luwak. A fancy salt is, at worst, salt. Which I’ll choose any day over civet poop.
Note that there can be a difference in salts based on being coarser or or finer grained, assuming they’re not dissolved. Mouthfeel and to some extent the intensity of saltiness, due to the surface area involved.
I think it was a few months or years ago I was thinking to myself as I was grinding some sea salt into a dish I was preparing, “There’s really no fucking point to a salt grinder is there? Salt doesn’t have any oils or fragrances that will dissipate if cracked and ground?”
I don’t know why I even bought sea salt that came in a salt grinder. Normally I just buy the big Morton’s IODIZED salt (to hell with kosher, give me my Iodine)…
Glad to know my “hunch” if you want to call it that was valid. There really is no point to grinding salt. So how did this ever get started?
And I often wish the portions were bigger, even if just to justify how frickin expensive it’s getting to be to eat out. Just because some people can eat like a bird and feel full after doesn’t mean everyone does, and if I do end up with leftovers to take home, so much the better.
A pox upon you! If you like cake, what’s not to like about being able to buy a single serving (or many different single servings)?
I agree that gourmet salt is a little overboard.
But it doesn’t come within a mile of the craziness of drinking something that came out of a cat’s butt.
A single serving of cake is called a slice. A slice that’s shaped like a tiny little cake is called a gimmick.
Yeah, I certainly don’t “eat like a bird.” I would prefer smaller portions, and a proportional decrease in price. I am struggling to think of a time I’ve been at a restaurant wishing portions were bigger. Yes, eating out can be expensive. I cook at home at least six days a week. Eating in is pretty expensive, too.
This has probably come up in other similar threads I’ve missed, but – can someone explain to me molten chocolate lava cake? Its been a trend in a number of restaurants for many years now, and you can buy it in a mix, or follow a recipe yourself. But you have to make sure you don’t over cook it, or its just a brownie in a cupcake tin.
Yeah, and if its made properly … its an undercooked cake that still raw in the middle. It doesn’t make me think its delicious, unctuous, gooey chocolate filling, because Hostess has been cream filling cake for year. No, this stuff is simply raw in the middle.
This isn’t some spectacular innovation. This is what happens naturally when you take a cake out too soon. And yeah, some recipes call for egg, so that’s part of what’s raw. Maybe that’s not that important health safety-wise – but no one is permitted to disagree with me without sucking down a raw egg first.