As an ex chef can you explain the insane over-salting to me? is this by design to try and encourage more drinking, or because the chef's tastebuds are shot, or because of some pseudo-belief in what it does under the salamander or .. what?
On duck fat roasted potato with rosemary? drown it in salt. Salt crusted fish? it said it on the menu. Everything else, you'd slap them if they turned the salt grinder this many rotates at the table.
A lot of people are used to the extra salt in cheap food. If restaurant food isn't salty enough, they will complain. Chefs are just adjusting to what their most vocal customers complain about.
My co-workers are from the whole spectrum. We can sit at a dinner with identical dishes. Me and one more has troubles eating because it's so insanely salty. A couple think it's a bit over salted but very good. One is adding more salt. How are you to please everyone?
> Chefs are just adjusting to what their most vocal customers complain about.
I’d rather the chef use the least amount required for proper cooking and leave it to me if I want more (some things absolutely need salt to cook properly, and in general it’s better to have some). It’s easier to add more than remove any excess.
> I prefer to add salt myself
Exactly. On the other hand I might not be enough of an arsehole because I would never complain about something I could fix so trivially myself.
proper cooking is not really objective though, and the moment you have anything involving brining, marinading etc. the salt level is kind of out of your hands.
the two strategies to adjust this i've seen, are either
* a sauce boat for sauced dishes, since the sauce is the thing that contains more or less sodium and is controllable
* more so in Asian restaurants, but you can order sides of unseasoned carbs (e.g. rice) to balance it out
> proper cooking is not really objective though, and the moment you have anything involving brining, marinading etc. the salt level is kind of out of your hands.
Some things just need salt otherwise the result is very different from what is expected (things like pasta and bread, for example, similarly salt is important for some vegetables). Same thing for brined food, it is unreasonable to expect that to be unsalted. We just don’t have to be dogmatic about it.
> the two strategies to adjust this i've seen, are either
For European food, the easiest is just to put a salt pot on the table (and pepper, while we’re at it). It’s important to be able to adjust sauce and salt independently.
It's easier to add salt, than to remove it, so I'm always in favor of this strategy. Less salt is one of those things that are good for you and only takes some getting used to. I can't eat any fast food burgers nowadays, they are just too salty.
You must be a super-taster. Some percentage of the population is super sensitive to taste, and think everything is overseasoned. You must be one of those people. Other people need 2-3x the flavor to match what you taste.
Sample of n=1, but my partner always thinks everything is over-seasoned, but otherwise has 0 "taste" when cooking or can't detect when something is stinky.
I've encountered this problem a number of times. It's one of a short list of things that will ensure I won't eat there again. I can fix something being under-salted, I can't fix something being over-salted.
On duck fat roasted potato with rosemary? drown it in salt. Salt crusted fish? it said it on the menu. Everything else, you'd slap them if they turned the salt grinder this many rotates at the table.