Salt should be tasteless

[Stinky The Clown]

I don't know where I heard this, but it made perfect sense to me.

If you taste salt's presence or absence, you've seasoned improperly.

[Warpy]

1. That's how it should be

but too many people are used to eating fast food and convenience food, both types of which are absolutely loaded with salt to compensate for loss of flavor during processing.

I've been on a low salt diet since I was a kid, thanks to parental high blood pressure. I find I can't manage a lot of restaurant food and practically no processed stuff, all I can taste is salt. Forget chips and microwave popcorn, just can't do those at all.

Conversely, people who are used to the standard US diet are going to find everything tastes like cardboard for the first month they go on a low salt diet. Lemon juice helps but not much.

Salt, therefore, is a very individual thing. It's always best to use less in cooking and allow people to suit themselves at the table, IMO.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. During one of my pregnancies I was put on a no-salt diet. If it said sodium on the

label, I wasn't supposed to eat it. I got accustomed to the taste of foods after a while to the point that the only foods that I missed the salt were potatoes and eggs. To this day, I use very little salt in cooking and hardly ever salt food at the table. OTOH, I know people who salt their food so heavily at the table that it looks crusted, sometimes without even tasting it first.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Isn't it strange,

when you taste something, think "It needs salt," you add salt, taste it again, and it's just right?

But it doesn't taste salty.

It's like magic. Always tickles me.

I've been trying out new salts, in small ventures, and it's fun to find how different some tastes are depending on which salt I use. There really is a difference!

This place has a fun selection - http://www.salttraders.com/StoreFront.bok

They even sell salt licks -

[hippywife]

3. That would make sense, I guess.

I know when I've terribly overdone it, that's for sure! LOL

[Lorax]

5. Makes sense

That makes perfect sense to me. I think it's the same with seasonings like fish sauce or anchovy. If it's just right, it doesn't scream "fish sauce", but if it's not there and it should be, it definitely tastes like something is missing.

DH and I went to a new Pho restaurant this week. He was looking at the non-Pho menu items and was deliberating ordering something but he almost didn't because he said it had fish sauce in it. He's not really a fish eater and that ingredient made him hesitant. I told him that I put fish sauce in his food all the time. Also, he doesn't eat fish but he loves my Caesar salad, which has anchovy. Duh! (He did order that menu item and he loved it. Sometimes I really do think it's better if certain picky eaters don't know too much about their food.)

Not to hijack your thread but the salt thing made me think of this.