What's up with all the salt?

[tupac17616]

Seems to me the American palate is used to a very high level of salt, partly due to reliance on processed food.

Agreed. Likewise with a high level of sweetness, due to the abundance of corn syrup in those foods.

[Katie Meadow]

Yes, sweet stuff too, absolutely. I know a couple who adore France, travel there once a year, love wine, wax poetic about the memorable meals and who are even thinking about buying property there for retirement. Would you predict the wife drinks a can of coke every day for breakfast? She does, along with many other Americans. Then all afternoon she nibbles at her desk from a box of cheez-its. Must be a balance thing.

[Vinotas]

Seems to me the American palate is used to a very high level of salt, partly due to reliance on processed food.

Agreed. Likewise with a high level of sweetness, due to the abundance of corn syrup in those foods.

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LOL! That was going to be the subject of another thread...

I go to Europe a lot due to my business (especially France) and when I get back I always feel everything here, and I do mean everything is very, very sweet. Even savory dishes. I do believe, as Katie states, that it's due to the high doses of corn syrup in many American foods.

It's quite a shock to the system when I return home, I must say.

Cheers!

[raji]

That's been my experience when returning from Asia, especially Japan. The difference between a can of Sprite in Japan and USA is shocking.

[Fat Guy]

Seems to me the American palate is used to a very high level of salt, partly due to reliance on processed food.

Agreed. Likewise with a high level of sweetness, due to the abundance of corn syrup in those foods.

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I'm not sure there is an "American palate" that would be applicable to this particular discussion. If anything there are several American palates. The people who worry about salt levels at the kinds of restaurants that don't put salt on the table just aren't eating enough Doritos, Twinkies and Whoppers to have the mass-market-influenced palate that is accustomed to extremely high levels of salt and sugar. I've found that most Americans who bother to join the eGullet Society find Doritos, Twinkies and Whoppers just as overwhelmingly salty, sugary and fatty as Japanese and European gourmets do. Not that you can't get those things in Europe and Japan.

On the larger point, I have a very wide range of salt levels that I'll call acceptably salted. You have to go pretty far in one direction or the other to qualify as over- or under-salted in my book. Even allowing for the palate recalibration that occurs when you eat food with a certain salt level (or sweetness level) over a period of time, I think it's possible to get perspective on the range of acceptable salting (or sweetening). Given all that, I agree with Vinotas that we're seeing an oversalting trendlet in gastronomic restaurants (where, a decade ago, we saw an undersalting trend).

[Robin Meredith]

Just to support the notion that you can get acclimated to different levels of saltiness - as a lifelong heavy salt user I can honestly say that I have never encountered an oversalted (to my taste) dish in a New York restaurant (well, maybe the green garlic soup at Jean-Georges once, but even that wasn't bad). This is a fascinating discussion for me, because it is completely foreign - my wife and I still end up asking for salt shakers at the table at the vast majority of our meals.

[Vinotas]

I always presumed that folks who ate and liked salty foods would develop a "resistance" to it, to the point of not noticing it when it was there in abundance. But for someone like myself, who admittedly likes salty foods (not junk foods, more like salt-crusted standing rib roast, as I said in Post #1), this trendlet, as Fat Guy calls it, is becoming quite the pain in the neck.

We had dinner at Les Sans Culottes on Saturday and while the pate was over-salted, the fries were under-salted. Who knew?

In any case, what can we do about it? Aside from groaning and moaning on forums like this, how do we get the message across? Chefs read this and other BBs, hopefully they'll take notice and lighten the load.

Cheers!

[Katie Meadow]

Some of the comments on this thread make me feel vindicated. If there are people out there who admit they like their food well salted and still are finding some restaurant food too salty, then even as a person who has cut back on salt I must not be completely off the mark.

If chefs are reading this so much the better, but I would think the first line of defense is to send back the food and tell them why, or at the very least, confide in the waiter and see what he suggests. Returning food to the kitchen takes courage, at least for me. My husband would rather hide under the table than do it, and he would rather be beamed off the face of the earth than watch me do it, but that would send the message.

Problem is, of course, that many of the other diners eating the same food either don't have a problem with the salt level or are too embarrassed to make their feelings known. I know when I am paying more than $30 for an entree I don't want to believe the food is inedible. And if I acknowledge my disappointment my family will think I had a bad time. It's hard not to get cowed into thinking it's just you, not the food; after all, what about the hype and the hip review, blah blah. But when my family--far more tolerant of salt than me--find their choices are also oversalted it's hard to give the chef the benefit of the doubt. Let's send back the lamb and stop acting like sheep!

[Nathan]

I haven't noticed any oversalting at all. I've had dishes that were aggressively seasoned...but usually it was pretty clear that the dish was intended to be that way.

I simply don't see any sort of oversalting trend in NY restaurants...

[Mayur]

The salt levels at both Momofukus have seemed high-ish to me on occasion. Ditto at Kampuchea, at Prune, and at a couple of other places doing "big" flavors. But in general, I haven't noticed this to be a common problem, and my usual response (sending the food back) has been met with aplomb.

I have *absolutely* no problem with restaurants not putting salt on the table. Salt levels are one of those essential things that I expect the chef to get right at a quality establishment. I'd be as nonplussed to be presented with sauce on the side or a dish of beurre fondue for finishing.

[Jesikka]

The salt levels at both Momofukus have seemed high-ish to me on occasion. Ditto at Kampuchea, at Prune, and at a couple of other places doing "big" flavors. But in general, I haven't noticed this to be a common problem, and my usual response (sending the food back) has been met with aplomb.

I have *absolutely* no problem with restaurants not putting salt on the table. Salt levels are one of those essential things that I expect the chef to get right at a quality establishment. I'd be as nonplussed to be presented with sauce on the side or a dish of beurre fondue for finishing.

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The problem with the salt shaker approach is that food (except soups or something) shouldn't properly be salted at that point in the cooking for the proper development of flavors. Salt doesn't act as a flavor enhancer when it's added on as a sprinkling that sits on top of the food. It has to be absorbed. If you want to waste a piece of meat doing this experiment, try one piece pre-salted and one salted after the fact. Huge difference. There are significant chemical reactions that you can read about in Thiss or someone.