Salt POLL: Your use and preferences

When I have a family dinner the salt preferences range all across the spectrum you polled, so I put it on the table and am judicious with salt in cooking. I'm also a very slow eater (last one to finish) and I've found, especially with steak, that as the food gets colder, it needs more salt. I haven't figured that out.

Mark Lipton will probably be along shortly to educate us, Howie. Meanwhile, I would surmise that the heat volatizes aromatic elements; when that heat is gone and there is less volatization, you smell less, which means you taste less, which means you need to enhance the taste more. But that's just what the scientific community calls a WAG.

I'm going to educate you??? Dream on, Hoke. Your explanation sounds reasonable to me, but I can't say that I've ever noticed the phenomenon that Howie describes.

Mark Lipton

A general comment: I'm surprised that of 34 voters, only five cop to limiting their use for health reasons, that's what...only 1 in 7? Would have expected higher.

Perhaps this means that your voters are getting good medical advice, since the current evidence suggests that sodium-responsive hypertension accounts for less than 20% of the cases of hypertension in this country.

Mark Lipton

Isn't that the same reason food needs to be re-salted after going in the refrigerator.

I always add more salt to my lunch leftovers after they've been sitting in the refrigerator overnight.

My wife doesn't do it, but she's crazy!

I find just the opposite to be true. To me, the flavors intensify the more they settle, especially salt. I have noticed that I like a little more salt on a cold beef roast, but nothing else. And, if we are talking about anything with a sauce or soup, I deliberately undersalt since I expect that the flavors will concentrate over night.