The bigger the salt crystals, the less salt you’ll get in a given volume because they don’t pack as well, so if you’re putting in a tablespoon of salt, big salt rocks are going to be less salty than kosher salt, which is less salty than normal table salt.
This is my guess. All it takes is someone trying it once and noticing how bland the pre-ground stuff is to switch to grinding your own. As filmore also noted, the spice mavens then added grinders to small packages of whole pepper so they could jack up the price in the interest of “convenience.”
It also depends on the crystal structure, which differs by manufacturer. Some salt crystals end up being “fluffier” by volume, which impacts flavor if measuring by volume.
I think it began back in the '80s, about the same time as the “Hi, my name is [ … ], and I’ll be your waiter tonight” bullshit.
Key info:
“There is even quite a bit of difference in volume between the two most common supermarket brands of kosher salt: Diamond Crystal kosher salt comes in at 10 grams per tablespoon, while Morton kosher salt clocks in at 15 grams”
Diamond Crystal is fluffier, Morton is denser.
My sister collects them and I have a pair of glass bunnies now, but we never saw such a thing back then.
There are different salts and they do seem to have different taste profiles if that is the correct term, but IDK why a salt mill is needed as to me the same type of salt tastes the same, so why not make it the correct size, though the Lord Jesus seemed to take issue with that: Matt 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
When I was growing up we had a pepper grinder on the table. It was pressed glass with a nickel-silver top and crank. When I wanted to “help” in the kitchen, Mom would sit me at the counter with a dish of peppercorns and the grinder. I would slide open a small port on the lid and drop the peppercorns in. One. At. A. Time.
It wasn’t until I was a teen that I discovered the whole top came off. The port was meant for checking how full it was because the design on the glass basically made it opaque.
I call that 8-gauge pepper in a 10-gauge shaker. I figure it saves them money, most customers giving up after managing to get a few grains of pepper out. Me, loving pepper – it’s the king of spices after all – I take the top off and carefully tap the pepper onto the dish, even with the finely ground variety.
Once salt hits water, it dissolves. I suppose rock salt would take some times, but no one cooks with that. Further, all salt is sea salt, and the minerals in special salts are minor (all salt is 95% or more sodium chloride. It is unlikely anyone can taste the difference (other than as an example of the placebo effect), so grinding salt is entirely for show.
Pepper, OTOH, has oils that evaporate over time, changing the flavor. (Unlike salt, which is just as good after thousands of years.) A pepper mill gives you fresher pepper.
It was earlier then that. I remember it from my dating days in the mid to late 1960s.
I don’t remember when it started, but it always felt like one of those things where it seemed like you were getting extra “service” in order to lubricate your wallet for extra tip money. Either that, or to somehow conserve the expense of peppercorns so customers could not dabble too much with the spice (or as mentioned, so customers would not walk-off with the grinder).
It’s been in the past 15-20 years. And it’s totally absurd. Unlike pepper, where the peppercorns are somewhat naturally protected from losing their flavor compounds until they’re ground/milled (i.e. the flavor and aroma are more intense when freshly ground), all you’re doing with salt is literally changing the physical size of the pieces. It’s flavor properties are pretty much inherent in the salt itself, or the trace minerals/compounds contained in it.
So like @RealityChuck points out, grinding salt is entirely for show, and probably hooks people who don’t realize that fresh-ground salt is no more or less salty than salt ground at the factory 10 years ago.
Grinding your own pepper seems more tied to A) having the money and B) appreciating the flavour, at least to me. I was fairly poor growing up, and we had a set of matching plastic salt and pepper shakers; they may have been a tupperware rip-off, but the looked to date from the 60s or 70s. The S and P at one time had been colored but the pigment had worn off. Those were the only spices used at the table. I remember watching the salt being refilled, but seldom if ever the pepper.
I couldn’t really taste the pepper; for me it was more of a visual thing to see little flakes of black on the food, which made it look “proper”. Our pre-ground pepper was undoubtedly stale and tasteless, so nobody really used very much because it had no taste. Hence why the shaker seldom ran out or got refilled.
Today I’m much more appreciative of spices, but I still use pre-ground pepper. This is because I like hot foods, so when I need black pepper I use a lot of it; too much to wait around hand grinding it. Even the amount I’d put on a single plate might take me 30 seconds or more to grind. Plus, I do a lot of measuring in my cooking, so grinding into a separate bowl and then measuring it out to get the right amount is a pain. With pre-ground I can just scoop or pour the volume I need without the extra step.
The refill plastic bags have ziplock seals, so you can reseal them and slow down on the flavour-losing. And I actually go through those bags pretty fast so my pre-ground pepper usually stays fairly strong for the couple months I might have a bag. I also have to buy the bigger bags because the small packs don’t last.
Adam Ragusea has a video on Kosher salt where he describes the main difference or advantage as it’s big crystals being easier to pinch and apply to food over finer ground salt. I don’t know if that really applies to the popularity of people home grinding their own salt though, but just thought I’d throw it in.
If I (and many others like myself) cook it, you’re not getting whole crystals from the cheap-assed Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt that I added at various stages of the cooking process as they have completely dissolved. You’re getting the fancy-assed and not so cheap-assed Maldon that I sprinkled over the dish after I plated it before putting it in front of you. I’ll use the same Maldon in non-cooked applications, such as a salad.
Maybe it used to be that way, but nowadays you don’t have to have much money to buy a disposable pepper grinder (with pepper) at the dollar store.
https://www.dollartree.com/en/natural-pepper-grinder-15oz/111754
I have a nice stainless steel Peugeot pepper grinder that lets me choose among five levels of grind. It replaced a similar wooden one that cracked.
This is pretty much the reason I keep a jar of Penzey’s pre-ground pepper on the shelf. I still grind to order 90% of my usage, but if I need a bunch of pepper that’s a pain. Especially if I am constructing a rub of some sort. Hand cracking enough for a brisket would take forever!
Huh? Pretty sure pepper mills are not the realm of the bourgeoisie. Find one at the thrift store for a buck or less. My parents were definitely blue collar (machinist, factory worker) and we had a cheap-ass wooden pepper grinder in the house. In fact, my parents still use the same one, forty years later. I can’t imagine they spent more than a dollar or two in 1980 on it.
This is why you have a repurposed coffee grinder that you use for spices.
As you can tell, I’m not a fan of pre-ground black pepper, although the types that come coarsely ground are reasonable. The powdery stuff, though – it’s like dust swept off the floor to me. (This is not to say I wouldn’t use it in a pinch, or if in another’s kitchen. It’s just one of those things I’m particular about.)
Yes with the grinders and cost I’m talking about a time before you could find cheap foreign made plastic everything at the Dollar store. Also remember that poor people don’t necessarily always get the best bargains; part of not having much money means having far fewer options in general.
My mom went to the nearby stores she had the time to get to in between jobs. There wasn’t time or gas money to browse multiple stores. I’m sure there were cheaper options for a few things but not everyone has access to (or knowledge of) them. Also, to us grinders were seen as “fancy” and a waste, even if they would have cost the same. Add to that attitude our delusion that pepper had no taste anyway so why use a fancy labour intensive version of it? And, we were given a lot of the things we had from others and already had the pepper shaker. Free is always cheaper than even 1-2$.