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The info about salt is plain wrong. Kosher salt is used for curing meat and as a mainly decorative addition to baking, you don't need to use it for cooking, it

The info about salt is plain wrong. Kosher salt is used for curing meat and as a mainly decorative addition to baking, you don't need to use it for cooking, it doesn't dissolve noticably slower in liquids. In fact when most recipes specify a volumetric measurement of salt they mean table salt and if you were to use kosher or sea salt you would be under seasoning due the reduced volume, nothing to do with how quickly it dissolves. You should definitely not be using large grain salt in baking for this reason, unless it is to decorate a finished product. Iodine deficiencies were and are very, very real. They're also on the rise due to food deserts and rising poverty. Iodised salt largely eliminated iodine deficiencies so people with poor knowledge of the history think they just went away. Most processed food does not contained iodised salt, so table salt is an essential source or iodine for a great many people around the world. Idosing salt was and is one of the greatest public health success stories of the 20th century, do not talk about it like some conspiracy by government.

davidcelis 6y ago
> In fact when most recipes specify a volumetric measurement of salt they mean table salt That’s really not true. Most food writers would tell you that the standard is kosher salt, and many would specify diamond kosher
- OJFord 6y ago
  In America perhaps. In the UK the term isn't used, iodine is not (or it's so rare I've never seen/heard of it, and can't find an example now) added ever, and anti-caking agent is only added if it's marketed as a table salt.
  - lorenzhs 6y ago
    In the UK, iodine is added to cattle feed instead of salt, so it's contained in dairy products. No idea whether this can be a problem for vegans. "Kosher salt" isn't a thing this side of the pond (at least in Germany). Even regular coarse salt is not something you can expect to find in an average kitchen.
- powmonk 6y ago
  Maybe, just maybe, in the last 10-20 years when this trend for flakey salt has taken off. Any recipe you see older than 10 years I would safely bet that they meant table salt, and I would still recommend using table salt unless otherwise specified on anything more recent, that goes triple for any baking recipes. Again, unless for finishing. Of course if the recipe specifies weight rather than volume, the point is moot. And speaking as a former fine dining line cook, any food writer specifying kosher for anything other than fininshing/curing is a dolt IMO :)
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Flakey salt is not the same as kosher salt. I just flipped through my four most used cookbooks and they all say "salt measurements are for kosher salt" in the preface somewhere. Three of them specify diamond crystal. I've also got a coffee table book written in 1999 that says the same.
    - natdempk 6y ago
      Agreed. Kosher salt is mainly not flaky, it just has slightly larger granules than table salt. I think the poster above might be conflating some of the flakier salts you can get which might also be kosher with standard kosher salt.
  - natdempk 6y ago
    I think the main reason people go for kosher salt in recipes, cooking, and even baking is that it doesn’t taste of iodine. Table salt with iodine tastes slightly metallic, which will basically make your food taste worse. I’m an amateur cool, but you can simply taste the difference, so why make food taste worse/weirdly metallic?
    - phonypc 6y ago
      I defy you to taste the difference between iodized and not in a blind test. All else being equal of course, size and shape differences would be a giveaway. So equal mass dissolved in water.
- Biganon 6y ago
  In Switzerland, I never was able to find kosher salt. Coarse yes, table yes, but flaky kosher salt? Nope
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    Exactly, same here (also Suisse). It boggles my mind why would anybody use any other type of salt for anything, I guess lessons from primary school about iodine and its roles are long forgotten. I never ever felt any bad taste from iodized salts. Had to actually google what kosher salt means, the connection with real kosher food is 0 and it seems purely US term. There are whole articles about why you should never use iodized salts... seriously wtf
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      Table salt is so fine that it is hard to sprinkle over food evenly and in controlled amounts. The taste isn't the issue.
    - kulahan 6y ago
      You typically use different types of salt based on the size/shape of the grains. You want something larger and hollow for finishing, because it gives a nice texture, as an example. Every time I get the chance, I take a small amount of kosher salt (which is just salt used for koshering, not salt that is kosher) and a small amount of iodized salt and have visitors do a taste test. I've never had someone prefer the iodized salt, and they can always tell the difference between the two. Maybe they have different labels in different countries, though.
progre 6y ago
Huh, I would have guessed that "kosher" had something to do with that blood was sometimes used in the boiling pans to clean the salt back when salt was produced by evaporating sea water. But apparently not.
stewx 6y ago
> Kosher salt is used for curing meat [...] you don't need to use it for cooking It is highly useful when salting meat, or any large piece of food because you can see how much salt you are applying, unlike table salt, which dissolves almost immediately.
- powmonk 6y ago
  In my opinion seasoning meat is just short term curing, i.e. I do recommend flakey salt for that. It's useful less for being able to see the seasoning but the larger grains draw out more moisture/season deeper.

davidcelis 6y ago

> In fact when most recipes specify a volumetric measurement of salt they mean table salt That’s really not true. Most food writers would tell you that the standard is kosher salt, and many would specify diamond kosher

OJFord 6y ago
In America perhaps. In the UK the term isn't used, iodine is not (or it's so rare I've never seen/heard of it, and can't find an example now) added ever, and anti-caking agent is only added if it's marketed as a table salt.
- lorenzhs 6y ago
  In the UK, iodine is added to cattle feed instead of salt, so it's contained in dairy products. No idea whether this can be a problem for vegans. "Kosher salt" isn't a thing this side of the pond (at least in Germany). Even regular coarse salt is not something you can expect to find in an average kitchen.
powmonk 6y ago
Maybe, just maybe, in the last 10-20 years when this trend for flakey salt has taken off. Any recipe you see older than 10 years I would safely bet that they meant table salt, and I would still recommend using table salt unless otherwise specified on anything more recent, that goes triple for any baking recipes. Again, unless for finishing. Of course if the recipe specifies weight rather than volume, the point is moot. And speaking as a former fine dining line cook, any food writer specifying kosher for anything other than fininshing/curing is a dolt IMO :)
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Flakey salt is not the same as kosher salt. I just flipped through my four most used cookbooks and they all say "salt measurements are for kosher salt" in the preface somewhere. Three of them specify diamond crystal. I've also got a coffee table book written in 1999 that says the same.
  - natdempk 6y ago
    Agreed. Kosher salt is mainly not flaky, it just has slightly larger granules than table salt. I think the poster above might be conflating some of the flakier salts you can get which might also be kosher with standard kosher salt.
- natdempk 6y ago
  I think the main reason people go for kosher salt in recipes, cooking, and even baking is that it doesn’t taste of iodine. Table salt with iodine tastes slightly metallic, which will basically make your food taste worse. I’m an amateur cool, but you can simply taste the difference, so why make food taste worse/weirdly metallic?
  - phonypc 6y ago
    I defy you to taste the difference between iodized and not in a blind test. All else being equal of course, size and shape differences would be a giveaway. So equal mass dissolved in water.
Biganon 6y ago
In Switzerland, I never was able to find kosher salt. Coarse yes, table yes, but flaky kosher salt? Nope
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  Exactly, same here (also Suisse). It boggles my mind why would anybody use any other type of salt for anything, I guess lessons from primary school about iodine and its roles are long forgotten. I never ever felt any bad taste from iodized salts. Had to actually google what kosher salt means, the connection with real kosher food is 0 and it seems purely US term. There are whole articles about why you should never use iodized salts... seriously wtf
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Table salt is so fine that it is hard to sprinkle over food evenly and in controlled amounts. The taste isn't the issue.
  - kulahan 6y ago
    You typically use different types of salt based on the size/shape of the grains. You want something larger and hollow for finishing, because it gives a nice texture, as an example. Every time I get the chance, I take a small amount of kosher salt (which is just salt used for koshering, not salt that is kosher) and a small amount of iodized salt and have visitors do a taste test. I've never had someone prefer the iodized salt, and they can always tell the difference between the two. Maybe they have different labels in different countries, though.

progre 6y ago

Huh, I would have guessed that "kosher" had something to do with that blood was sometimes used in the boiling pans to clean the salt back when salt was produced by evaporating sea water. But apparently not.

stewx 6y ago

> Kosher salt is used for curing meat [...] you don't need to use it for cooking It is highly useful when salting meat, or any large piece of food because you can see how much salt you are applying, unlike table salt, which dissolves almost immediately.

powmonk 6y ago
In my opinion seasoning meat is just short term curing, i.e. I do recommend flakey salt for that. It's useful less for being able to see the seasoning but the larger grains draw out more moisture/season deeper.