About 1% by weight of water is about right, on average. I do closer to 2% myself. Here is a good article. I’ve done tastes before side by side and, yes, there is a difference.It’s not quite as dramatic as forgetting the salt in a bread recipe, but it’s definitely noticeable and I prefer it cooked in salted water. YMMV.
That article makes a lot of sense, when comparing the taste of unsalted pasta to salted pasta…unadorned by any sauces. But if you do as Johnny L.A. suggests and drain the pasta and finish cooking it in the sauce(which contains salt enough of its own), will you really be able to tell that the pasta wasn’t boiled in salt?
I haven’t tried, but if I finish cooking in sauce (which isn’t too common for me) I only do it no more a minute or so (depending how early I pull it) otherwise, it overcooks. So the pasta has already almost fully absorbed any liquid it’s going to absorb. Like I said above, I use restrained levels of sauce in my pasta, so it’s more noticeable. The pictures here show approximately what I shoot for, maybe even slightly less.
I can’t speak from direct experience about pasta, but adding a pinch of salt to the saucepan when you are boiling potatoes, for instance, makes a world of difference to the taste. Yes, most of the salt probably goes down the drain, but it still makes a world of difference.
I see pasta as a conveyance for the sauce. 
I used to think that way too, but discovered that a bland, minimally salty pasta made a bad conveyer. Adding salty stuff to it didn’t change the bland nature.
Right. The point is that adding the salt–whatever quantity–during the cooking has a different (and usually preferable) effect from just throwing it on right before you eat. The same applies to the use of soy sauce during Chinese cooking, or fish sauce during Thai cooking.
If you are of the opinion (as I am) that you enjoy and want to taste the pasta and you’re sparing with the sauce, you need to salt the water.
If you are of the opinion that the pasta is just to carry the sauce and you’re going to drown it in sauce anyway then salting the water becomes significantly less important.
Moving to CS.
Real Italians would call it gravy in English, not sauce. Some dishes are served cooked in the gravy, but in my own experience, limited to Italian Americans of several generations is that the pasta is served as is, as a separate dish, often preceding the main course.
And as the others say, salt is to to improve the flavor just as it is with other dishes.Good quality fresh pasta isn’t that bland, but like most other dishes people prefer adding some salt.
I’ll just speculate and say that perhaps salt isn’t added to dried pasta when it’s made because the salt would make it more hydroscopic and make the drying process more difficult or shorten the life of the pasta. When I make fresh pasta salt is included in the recipe so I don’t add salt to the water.
Note: I don’t finish the pasta in sauce–usually we’re eating spaghetti with homemade marinara, and since different folks like different amounts of sauce, we serve them separately.
That said, I can definitely tell the difference between salted and unsalted noodles. Unsalted noodles are edible, but much less delicious. I give a good second-long pour of salt into the water before adding the pasta, and it makes a huge difference.
Not explicitly true. My Father and his parents were FOB and they called it sauce. Most of the Italians I grew up around called it sauce. I’d say it’s about 50/50 - gravy/sauce form speaking to all the “real” Italians I know.
I can’t say you’re wrong. My experience is that immigrants will mostly call it gravy. Each generation increases the percentage calling it sauce. After all, they’re talking about the same thing, and sauce is the typical American word.
In my opinion, almost all restaurants use way, way too much salt. Salt is a cheap and easy way to mask the lack of flavor in bad food. I use it very sparingly at home, but when I go out, I almost always have the reaction: “Damn, this sure is salty food.” I think the more salt you use, the more you get accustomed to that taste, and the less salty it tastes, and you have to keep using more and more to actually notice it anymore. It also makes you thirsty, and therefore is a great way for restaurants to sell you more drinks, which is where they make their money.
It’s like heroine that way.
Heroines are usually high maintence. I prefer women with less courage.
Agreed with zoid. “Sauce = Gravy” is something that some Italian-Americans do and they’ve somehow convinced the world that we all do it. In fact, before reading about it here, I’d never heard of such a thing.
I think it’s also very much a regional thing. I’ve heard it pretty commonly in New York, and semi-commonly in Chicago. I have some OTB Italian friends here in Chicago (from Naples, moved when they were teenagers), and they just call it “sauce” themselves. I associate it more strongly with New York, but also a little bit with Chicago.
I made an overly exclusive statement, that upon review sounds like a No True Scotsman argument. I apologize, that was not my intent. Most of my experience has been in the Northeast, and that might be the regional factor.
Agreed. I stopped using the salt shaker years ago though I do add salt in my cooking (except for pasta which I may begin salting). Once I stopped using the salt shaker and started reading packaging I was amazed at how much salt was to be found in soups and anything else in a can. This is the reason that if I can’t find a fresh vegetable I will buy it frozen. If I can’t find it frozen I may buy it in a can but will rinse the hell out of it after opening.