to think putting salt on your food before you taste it is rude?

[KirjavaTheCat]

FIL comes to stay every couple of months and this is a habit of his. I cook, I place the meal in front of everyone at the table and before we've all picked up our knives and forks he's shaking salt onto his food.

He hasn't tasted it, he doesn't know if the seasoning is to his taste or not, he just goes ahead and does it.

On Saturday I made everyone cheese and pepperoni omelettes for breakfast. As he went to pick up the salt I stopped him and said, 'you should try it first, pepperoni tends to be quite salty' so he tried it, and lo and behold he didn't want any.

He's wasted food before, declaring he couldn't eat anymore because it was a bit salty. After he'd shaken a load on before tasting it

AIBU to find this really rude?

And in my experience it always those with a......limited palate that do it

Far from it!

found wanker of the week

oh typo horror.

I have always put it down to the fact that he is of limited intelligence and breeding.

You sound fond of him.

yes, but that's not adding salt to it at the table, is it?

ok, there's salt in the butter in the cake that you bake but you wouldn't cut yourself a slice and sprinkle the icing with salt, would you?

Well, maybe Derek would .

I think Marianne has a point, actually. I think for some people it's not about liking salt, or not just. The people I know who salt copiously without tasting are my dad and both ILs (though more so my mil), and all are notably ill at ease eating anything vaguely unfamiliar (which in my dad's case means anything other than a large, well-done piece of meat with potatoes and peas - carrots would be a bit out there) or eating out. My father has, I think, undiagnosed Asperger's, and gets anxious when his cast-iron routine is interrupted by a meal outside the home, and bolts his food in order to get home again. No conversation. My MIL is tense in restaurants and always seems to feel waiters don't think she's 'good enough', even in the most informal places, and I think there may well be something in the suggestion that they are re asserting control over the situation.

Haha limited - I was in Chez Nico about 20 years ago and had to stifle my snorts when Nico came out of his kitchen to have a hissy fit at another diner. I thought he was going to explode. Tbf to him though, his food for me (a salt fiend) was refectory seasoned.

I think the important point here is that the OP's FIL frequently over salts his food by the autocondimentation, and then refuses to eat it, this wasting a whole plateful of food that he could otherwise have eaten if he'd only bloody well tasted it first!

THAT is rude.

I wouldn't bother cooking for him again, tbh - or only cook food without salt at all, just for him, so he can salt it up to his heart's content.

My FIL does the very same thing

I have always put it down to the fact that he is of limited intelligence and breeding

Your Husbands father you say?

Generally speaking I agree that adults should be allowed to season their own food however they please, tastes vary etc.

BUT this bit is so rude:

He's wasted food before, declaring he couldn't eat anymore because it was a bit salty. After he'd shaken a load on before tasting it angry

If someone has put salt on their food and its too salty that's their own damn fault and they shouldn't be complaining that its too salty or refusing to eat it.

Anyone who does that doesn't deserve to be treated like an adult who can make their own decisions as they clearly can't cope with the consequences of their own actions.

EatShit I add salt and pepper to food I've cooked before I've tasted it too because, funnily enough, if I put the amount of seasoning in during cooking the only person who would be able to eat it would be me. I think it is far ruder to prepare and serve food that others can't eat because it is too salty or peppery.

Of course its rude !
you don’t just auto - condiment food
People are a bit odd about salt - but is substantially changes the way a dish tastes.
What if you had cooked a special meal for someone and they bunged ketchup all over it without so much as tasting it first...its the same thing.
if you think its not
Next time you eat out in a nice restaurant try sending the food back because the chef hasnt added enough salt if you think not..and most restraunts who have chefs dont put salt on the table...or ketchup..

its an insult to the cook and implies they don’t know how food should taste

We go to Bologna a lot which is food heaven. Really fantastic short break.

We stuffed ourselves and on the last day went to say goodbye at our favourite restaurant but could not face any more food. We were like Mr and Mrs Creosote.

The owner insisted on feeding us. He promised us a light dish - his special fried eggs, which made me feel sick just to think about.

He shaved truffle on them at the table. DH tasted it and said I had to try.

I ate the lot with some dry bread. Didn't add salt; it was probably the only time I've never eaten ketchup with a fried egg either.

Sadly, truffles aren't one of my food cupboard staples.

OMG Bologna train station pizzas!! sheer bliss!

I have always put it down to the fact that he is of limited intelligence and breeding

That's my excuse too and I'm sticking to it.

its an insult to the cook and implies they don’t know how food should taste

No-one has the right to dictate how food should taste to individuals.

If the chef can't get that through their heads, I can only assume they have little confidence in their own cooking if they see a bit of sprinkled salt as some sort of huge insult.

YABU - you were rude to your FIL and its not rude to add salt/pepper if you know that the cook uses none or very little salt when cooking.

Yes, yes, yes to the pizzas SunnyBaudelaire. You have to watch your luggage like a hawk though, don't you?

It's a nice station too. Handsome, in a brutal kind of way.

darkness is there some definitive guide as to how food should taste and only certain hallowed individuals such ad chefs are privy to this knowledge?

Just to add another dimension to the debate, I was taught at school that salt, if required, should be poured in a little heap at the side of the pate and added to each forkful if required, never shaken wholesale. That is why salt shakers have one hole not many as pepper shakers do.

I do not follow this advice.

However we were also told it was rude to pass the salt directly into the hand of another, you should place it on the table and the other person should pick it up. This one has stuck with me and it jars when I see the shakers passed hand to hand.

a lot of heroin use around that station limited, was the distinct impression I got ...and I often dont even notice that kind of thing.

Yet you marry a man that came from his ball sack.

Use your imagination EatShitDerek. Perhaps his wife was stealing Stephen Hawking's sperm and her husband was too dim to notice.

In fact, now I've thought about it for about 20 seconds, I'm sure that's the case.

Sunny as long as there was no salt use...

That's probably true Tricky as salt used to be put on the table in special bowls with spoons.