Salt of the Earth

I’d like to talk about salt as the opening piece for my new blog, Red Date Kitchen. This is simply because salt has not been  appreciated as  much as other ingredients that we adore, such as herbs, spices, or exotic items like lemongrass, coconut, turmeric, cacao, or vanilla bean.

Quite often we say about a dish, “That’s too bad, it’s a little too salty, otherwise, it would have been perfect.” 

Yes, a dish can be disastrous when  too much salt is added, and equally dissatisfying when there’s not enough salt. Salt can be  a very tricky thing. The worst yet is when an Indonesian says “Bagaikan sayur tanpa garam,” or  “It’s like a vegetable without any salt—meaning: it’s absolutely tasteless.      

The Chinese people are familiar with the seven essentials, for the Chinese kitchen, or kāimén qī jiànshì: firewood,  grain, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea (開門七件事: (柴、米 、油、鹽、醬、醋 、 茶).

I’ll never forget my mom’s warning that we should never let our rice bucket get completely empty. She reminded me of this when she came to visit us in New York when I had my first child some four decades ago. I realize now how true it is. No matter whether you are rich or poor, our kitchen must be equipped with the seven basic items. 

I recently watched an American cooking documentary called Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking, which demonstrated that delicious foods all depend on these four elements.. 

Salt has been important throughout history, dating back to biblical days. In Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, he called the common people “the salt of the earth.” Back then, salt was highly prized as a preservative of food. It was so precious that it was used as money.

Over time, other than basic grains, no other food material has been more valued than salt. During the fifth century A.D., Cassiodorus wrote: “It may be that some seek not gold, but there lives not a man that does not need salt.”

Salt has contributed a great deal of delicious food and ingredients to the world, including Italian prociutto, Vietnamese fish sauce (nước mắm), Indonesian shrimp paste (terasi), and Portuguese salted cod (bacalhau). I wonder how many more unknown dishes  I still have yet to discover.

I admit that when we cook, we often add too much salt without realizing it. We forget that salt is powerful and that it can be bad for one’s health. Just be mindful when using it.  A good reminder is that 1/4 teaspoon of salt is plenty. Starting with a small amount of salt is a good strategy, because one can always adjust the taste later by adding a bit more salt. I Remember my mother used to say, “There’s no way to save a dish when it’s already too salty.” She was absolutely right. 

We are easily persuaded to mimic chefs on cooking shows who sprinkle salt liberally with their fingers onto the meat or whatever dish he or she is making. The image of sprinkling salt is undeniably visually delicious and beautiful.  And so we can innocently lose control of the quantity of salt slipping through our fingers, while feeling like a professional chef. That’s the danger of visual perception. I am not against salt sprinkling, just be careful.  

Salt enhances the taste of food, it also a medium for preserving food.  I’ll tell you how to pickle bok choi,  chili, and how to cure pork belly, in the future posting on Red Date Kitchen.