The Problem With Being Conservative With Your Salt

Salt on a spoon
Photo by Jason Tuinstra on Unsplash

When it comes to preparing food, there are certain things that must be done exactly by the book, and other things that you can be more lenient with. For instance, when you bake cakes, there simply isn’t any room for “winging it” with how much baking powder you add. At the same time, cooking is a lot freer with its priorities. Salt is a great example of this, because everyone has their own opinion about how much salt is too much salt.

The Main Dilemma

The main dilemma every chef faces when they add salt to their dish is whether or not they should try to be more conservative, or whether or not they should try and add the perfect amount of salt. You might think that the latter makes more sense—after all, why wouldn’t you add the exact amount of salt?. But defenders of the former argue that some may not agree about how much salt is the perfect amount—and thus being conservative allows people to later add extra if they so desire.

The Problem With That

However, there are a couple of problems with being conservative with your salt. First of all, if you’re having guests over, chances are they’ll feel too shy to add salt to the dish you served, believing that they’ll come off as rude. And second of all, it’s just a bad look as a chef to be conservative. It displays a lack of confidence, which is the last thing you want folks to think about you. So add however much salt feels right to you, and serve it proudly.