to not understand covering food in salt before youve even tasted it

[asteri]

ok so I know this is a little trivial but at the weeikend DH and I went out for dinner with some old friends and it surprised me the amount of people who, as soon as their dinner arrived just started piling salt on it, then we had some of his footie friends over last night and a few did the same. How do yo know if food needs salt before you even taste it?

I used to do this. It's just what you did. You had salt and pepper on the table and when your food came you put it on to season it. But when all the healthy eating and concentration on salt intake started I limited my intake to first just use during cooking and then little use during cooking. After a while your taste buds change and you don't need or even want the extra salt.

My dh used to do it all the time but I kept on at him until he stopped.

My real beef is with tomato ketchup or hot sauce!!! I hate when you cook a delicious meal that you've slaved over for ages in the kitchen trying to make sure it tastes just right and then someone goes and pours sauce all over it before they've even smelt it !

cagedbird I totall agree, I cant be doing with ketchup or hot sauce on EVERYTHING!

I'm not totally against people adding salt to their food either - I just don't understand why people woud add it to anything other than very plain potatoes/veg without tasting first. For example if I make a pasta sauce, I may not add salt (although I usually do use herbs/spices so it wouldn't be bland). Some people may then wish to add salt at the table, which is fine. However some pasta sauces I make are naturally more salty (e.g. ones that contain bacon which is salty in itself). I can't understand why someone would add salt to that without tasting it first.

Habit.
Plus this no salt thing is quite a new thing. Parents who salted everything, suddenly stop eating salt, once they've had children , becasue the guidelines recommend it.
PLUS, have you seen how much salt chefs add. I have eaten at michelin star. watched alot of cookery programmes. jamie, barefoot contessa, ruth and rose - riverside - they all use tonnes of salt. most chefs do.

"cagedbird I totall agree, I cant be doing with ketchup or hot sauce on EVERYTHING!"-
I can´t be doing with it on anything-I like to taste the food

Would it be better manners to taste it and then cover it with salt then?
Maybe it's best to leave the cook thinking 'they don't even know what it's like - they're making a big mistake' rather than tasting it first.

You don't put ketchup on things anyway, you put it next to the food so you can dip as appropriate!

Trillian, you don't know my dh it's literally swirled in a pattern all over everything and then everything's mixed up like one big jambalaya. Luckily (I think) he does it with everything he eats not just my food.

Paisley that's a thought, maybe I'd be insulted if someone tasted it and then went ffs pass the salt!

I do like salt but on certain things.

Today had a chicken and stuffing sarnie and I added salt when I made it without tasting it as I know I prefer it that way.

So for certain foods yes I add salt before tasting. Houmous, celery, chips, chicken, roast beef - all better with a bit of salt on imo

I don't have it on the table or add it when cooking as a rule but I used alot of herbs and things like worcs sauce etc.

YABU. I never add salt but usually tend to add black pepper before tasting. I don't need to taste it to know that the flavour will be enhanced by a little pepper.

I don't know. I think if you've spent time and a fair bit of cash on good ingredients, cooked them carefully, plated them nicely and presented them, then it IS something of a slur on your efforts to drown it all in salt without tasting it.

I have no problem with people adding salt after they've tasted- just before.

who knows- one day those salters might discover that the cook, knowing that they prefer lots of salt, have actually added much much more in the cooking process and therefore, with their adding-salt-before-tasting habit, have discovered that the food is TOO salty to eat.......

As a final note, I do wish the heavy salters would remember that not everyone likes so much and not heap it into their cooking as it then makes the meal uneatable. Youu can add but you can't take away....