Writing about the use of salted butter versus unsalted butter, and noticing certain notions people have about the two, made me realize that many cooks, and especially foodies, hold a central misconception about the use of salt in food. This is witnessed in the idea that if you buy the finest butter available, you won’t need salt in it. Thus, the only reason salted butter exists is to cover up a lack of taste or disguise low quality. The simple truth is that a touch of salt would bring out the best flavor in even the finest butter. Just about any food you imagine, no matter high the quality or exotic the ingredients, can be improved by salt. So, the biggest myth about using salt in food is that it is cheating.
This ability of salt is not because of any shortcomings of the food, but because of the limits of our taste perception. That is, salt enhances our ability to perceive certain tastes, thus helping us realize just how delicious the food truly is. Salt isn’t primarily used in cooking to improve bad food, although it certainly can do so; it’s used to enhance good food. Therefore, the biggest misconception people have about salt is that good cooks, and by extension, good food, doesn’t need salt.
I’ve recently written another article about the potentially confusing instruction in recipes to “salt to taste.” This is an instruction that helps us understand how salt should be used; not to make food salty, but to make food taste as good as it can taste. Something I said in that article bears repeating here: “Salt is usually a seasoning; rarely a flavoring.” When used by a skilled cook, salt isn’t used to disguise bad food, but to enhance good food. Yet, many would-be cooks have been led to believe that using salt is somehow a sin and that doing so means they have chosen bad ingredients or used poor technique in preparing them.
One of my habits is to Google certain questions to try to get the lay of the land, as it were. When I Googled “Why is salt used in food?” the answers I saw were revealing. Too many sources claim that a primary purpose of salt is as a flavoring! No wonder people think salt is overused to should not be used in “real” cooking. Using salt to make food taste like salt is NOT a primary purpose of salt. As I stated in the previous article, it’s rarely done except in salted caramel, salty pretzels, etc. The main purpose of salt is not to add a salty taste but to enhance the flavor of the food.
One of the sources I noticed was an article on the website The Spruce Eats. I have nothing bad to say about the information in the article as it’s a high-quality source of info. However, I was chagrined by the order the author chose to give to the “Six Functions of Salt in Food.” Highest ranking seems to have been given to salt being used as a preservative, second place as a texture enhancer, and third place as a flavor enhancer.
Now, there is no more important function of salt in food than as a preservative, but for an article meant to educate people about cooking, well, I would think top billing would go to “flavor enhancer.” This is the function most of us call on in our everyday cooking. Rarely do we actually use salt at home to preserve food, nor think about this function. And hardly ever are we aware, nor do we even care, about it’s influence on texture. The reason I bring this up is that it reinforces my believe that, in general, salt’s use to enhance the basic flavor of food is under-appreciated. Even if you get your eggs from your back-yard hens and cook them immediately, you would be foolish to think they couldn’t be improved by a pinch or two of salt.
Those dedicated to saltless cooking will tell you that you can replace salt with the liberal use of herbs so that you will not notice the lack of salt. While fresh and aromatic herbs can certainly add some zing, this zing would be further enhances by, you guessed it, salt.
Salt enhances our perception of sour, sweet, and savory tastes while somewhat suppressing bitter tastes. A the article in the Spruce Eats points out, you may have noticed that salt “de-bitters” cruciferous vegetables like broccoli or that it can make a less-than-sweet fruit taste sweeter, which is why its used on grapefruit.
You don’t need a long essay on how salt performs it’s primary function in cooking. If you take anything from this article, I hope it is that, when used properly, salt makes the best shine as bright as it can on the palate. And yes, even if you buy the finest, most expensive butter possible a bit of salt mixed in before you put some on your bread will make it taste even better! I’ll leave you with another simple quote from the previous article about salt’s ability to bring out the flavor in food:
Salt helps the taste buds be more sensitive to taste molecules while also increasing saliva production. Increased saliva helps better break down food components, further enhancing our ability to detect taste-related compounds in food. Salt also helps make volatile compounds in food more volatile, leading to improved aroma and therefore improved flavor. The term volatile refers to compounds that evaporate easily and thus contribute the most to a food’s aroma and flavor.
If a food has positive sensory attributes, as pointed out here, salt enhances them. It also masks unpleasant sensory attributes while doing so. And, yes, when a food is not so palatable, salt can make it taste better or at least help you choke it down. This could primarily be due to salt suppressing disagreeable taste sensations like bitterness, or by bringing out the agreeable, however dull they may be. And, sure, sometimes, we’d rather just taste salt than taste almost nothing, in regards to bland and flavorless foods. Saltine crackers are called “saltine” for a reason.
