BUTTER & SALT
DAILY POST APRIL 17th:Â BUTTER & SALT
ASSEMBLE/BUY
Lightly-salted (standard) stick butter AND unsalted stick butter
Sea salt OR kosher salt OR both (why not?) – unprocessed, with no anti-caking or other additives. Ingredient list should have just one item: salt.
Whole-grain crispbread without any added salt, like Wasa flatbread or Kavli Crispy Thin OR a good French baguette
Iodized salt (don’t buy it; I’m assuming that you have this, ordinary table salt, in your kitchen)
Let both butters soften a little bit, then spread some of each on the bread. Can you taste the difference between the salted and the unsalted? If not, then put a little of each to your tongue, the unsalted first. See what that tastes like. Now taste the lightly salted. It is a subtle distinction because there is not a lot of salt in the salted butter. If you positively cannot distinguish the difference, it is possible that your taste buds have become accustomed to high amounts of salt in the foods you’re eating. Your poor, overstimulated buds need larger amounts to actually recognize the taste of the salt.
TEST
Here’s the real experiment: Limit your salt intake for 21 days. Avoid prepared foods, especially deep fried foods. Then come back and redo this taste test to see if you can’t distinguish between the two butters. The beauty and satisfaction of eating is in the tasting of the flavors of the individual foods.
THE SALT DIFFERENCE
Put a little bit of each kind of salt in a cup, a color other than white. Notice the differences. The iodized salt is smaller with grains uniform in shape & size. Sea salt and kosher salt have larger grains or various sizes and shapes. They may begin to attach themselves to each other if they contain no anti-caking agents. Taste each one, seeing if you can detect subtle differences. Can you notice the metallic flavor in the iodized salt? Cooks prefer using kosher or sea salt in cooking because it brings along no flavors except for saltiness. And the rough texture is more pleasant.
