Is salt sea more salty than the usual one? Do you need several types of salt to cook well and why unsalted food doesn’t have a good taste? The simplest spice has a lot of facets. If you’re curious, find the answer here.
It is said that you do not need more than salt to make a rock-star dish. Salt is considered the most important spice and is the only rock we as humans eat. There are countless varieties ranging from simple, saline to colorful or infused with herbs. It is also a spice that, consumed in too large quantities, can do us harm. There are fascinating things to say about the crystal that makes our food better, but there are a few things also that you might want to find out about.
1. Is Sea Salt More Salty Than The Normal Salt?
Not. But you might feel it that way because the marine salt crystals are bigger and so the taste buds are finding a little bit harder and for a longer time to feel the flavor. This is what Michael Tordoff said, who is studying the taste perception and salt psychology at the Monell Chemical Perceptions Center in Philadelphia.
In addition, there are other elements in sea salt that could alter the way we feel it: potassium, calcium, magnesium. But they add a bitter flavor to sea salt and not a salty taste.
It might just be a marketing strategy because “sea salt” sounds a bit better than “table salt”, although in a pure state these two are not different.
2. Do we need more types of salt?
Kitchen chef Barton Seaver, owner of Hook Restaurant in Washington, says there’s no need.
In his book For Cod and Country, he says many professional or amateur chefs fall into the trap of exotic salts such as Hawai colored salts or smoked salts. “We often get stuck with the label,” says the chef.
You do not need them to cook well, but only to give another subtle flavor to the food just after the food is cooked. They are perfect to be scattered over some kind of food at the end, just to highlight other flavors.
And without them, the taste can be very good. However, you will don’t need exotic salts that cost a fortune to boil pasta, vegetables or meat because their flavors will be lost in the water.
If it were after Barton Seaver, the Kosher salt is all you need in the kitchen. It dissolves easily, has uniform crystals, and with time you will learn how much you should add depending on what you are cooking, without using measuring instruments.
3. Why does the saltless food doesn’t have a good taste?
It’s a question which answer has been found in fairy tales. It seems that the simple explanation is that we, humans, have a primitive mechanism by which we feel / taste sodium and nothing else seems to satisfy the need for this element besides salt.
To fool the mechanism without consuming too much salt, you can sprinkle a little over the biscuits or butter-fried bread, so that on your tongue you will immediately feel the salty taste and the brain will believe in the “salty food”. It is not, however, very simple about other types of food, such as soups.
But if your health forces you to reduce salt levels, it’s good to be careful at what you personally add to food, because the products that you buy already buy (packed products) you will find enough salt to cover your body’s needs.
For starters, your food will look flaky, but in time you will learn to love other flavors you did not think you can feel: grain jam or aromatic herbs from steaks.