Food

[facthunter]

Spice is the Variety  of life.  Nev

[old man emu]

13 hours ago, Marty_d said:

Jeez, what a tasteless mob!

I'll argue for flavour. Piquancy, tanginess, the touch of spice to titillate the taste buds.

If I have poached eggs I'll put salt, pepper, oregano and some chilli flakes on them. Even grilled cheese gets a sprinkle of chilli powder before going under the grill.

One of our favorite family recipes is chicken shawarma, by Recipe Tin Eats. The flavour is superb.

And there's the crux of my gripe. I don't argue with the "I'll put" because I'll put on just enough to please me. I don't like it when someone else, out of my control, whacks on heaps so that I have no say in the spiciness, or other flavours.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I was shocked when I heard on some cooking show that the re was a BIG difference between restaurant food and home-cooked, and it was in the amount of salt....  apparently there is much more salt in restaurant food than in home-cooked. I think it was george columbard who said this.

[Bruce Tuncks]

There was a show on tv called " pure, white and deadly" where they looked at world-wide patterns of salt intake and subsequent stroke rates. ( the two things were proportional, in that if you double one thing then you double the other.)

Mind you, what we determine to be a palatable amount depends on the culture we have grown up in.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Once,many years ago,  my mother-in-law to be fixed  me with a withering look as she added a handful of salt to the stew. Nowadays I have to keep my mouth shut when she gushes on about how she never fed salt to her dear departed. ( I actually admire about how convenient her memory is )

[facthunter]

Perception and memory are always selective. You perceive what you want to and the older you get. the faster you went.  Nev

[onetrack]

I'm always amazed at the large amounts of salt and spices thrown into food being cooked on TV cooking shows, I only use small amounts. I quite often see recipes calling for a teaspoon of salt, I'd never use more than about 1/4 teaspoon.

[old man emu]

For the "normal" consumers, a pinch of fine rock salt weighs about 0.3 g; with the coarser salts,  about 0.4 g. In consumer tips on sparing salt, it might be helpful to point out that fine and freely flowing salt can be dosed more precisely.

 

One saving grace from using salt is if one uses iodised salt for thyroid function. Iodine deficiency, seen as the development of a goitre, used to be a regional thing due to iodine deficiency in the soil. With our food now being sources from all over the globe, as well as our much more varied diet altogether, I wonder if goitre might be a thing of the past.

[spacesailor]

" A thing of the past " .

Hopefully, it will never be something to be Laughed at 

( the man without a neck ) .

spacesailor

 

[Litespeed]

Salt is essential for life, the Sodium is used in the ion exchange for nerves. Hence low sodium can lead to cramping and in bad cases fainting, falls and loss of motor control for muscles.

 

Too much is a bad thing.

 

However, you can simply change from Sodium Chloride to Potassium Chloride salt for cooking.

It tastes great and the body can take lots without as much problems.

 

Food loves salt for generation of flavours in the chemical interactions of cooking. It really is a type of chemistry.

 

If you cook, your a home chemist.

[Jerry_Atrick]

7 hours ago, Litespeed said:

f you cook, your a home chemist.

I agree, on the basis you can, without much direction, concoct gems from a reasonable array of ingredients. I need a cookbook and if it is not precise, am totally useless.

 

I hear what you say about salt adding flavour, and it does, but except when we don't cook at home, we rarely add salt and I find the flavours are far more intense without it. Compare the rich, creamy flavour of unsalted butter to that of butter; I would tend to say salt ameliorates flavour, and because we have been using it for hundreds of generations (originally as a preservative), as a species we seem to have developed an almost instinct for its taste or impact on taste.

 

Having said that, there are times it is required. especially with fatty foods as it breaks down fats. I recall being served a fresh chicken noodle soup that wasn't salted and was inedible until a decent dose of salt was added.. It transformed it into a great tasting dish.

 

And, I have to admit, when I make a nachos at home, I do mix the guac myself, and yes, I do add a pinch of salt to it.

 

We get Maldon sea salt in the standard size boxes. I have yet to replenish it this year.

[onetrack]

As you get older, your taste buds decline in sensitivity, so salt and pepper become your favourite way of adding flavour to your food. I prefer white pepper to black, as it has a milder bite.

 

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/004013.htm#:~:text=Each remaining taste bud also,affect your sense of taste.

[red750]

Tastebuds are distributed around the tongue as shown below. One of the tablets I take daily is quite bitter, so I place it in the middle of the tongue and wash it down with water.

 

[old man emu]

Actually, that diagram is not quite correct. All taste buds can detect the various categories. It's just that the ones in the depicted areas are more sensitive to the associated category.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I have read that " spiciness" or chilli-hot food, was actually invented by an unholy alliance between english soccer-hooligans and their profit-driven pakistani cooks.

Apparently, they ( the soccer hooligans) demanded food way hotter than anything remotely authentic.

Personally, I reckon that the indian curries were a reaction to living with no refrigeration. You used spices to cover the taste of rotten meat.

[facthunter]

A lot of what is posted here could be taken with "Pinch of Salt" .It aids digestion . Most doctors advise "Not too much". The taste can also be addictive. Salt Transfats and sugar help preserve food..The safe level of transfats is ZERO  Nev

[nomadpete]

41 minutes ago, facthunter said:

A lot of what is posted here could be taken with "Pinch of Salt" .It aids digestion . Most doctors advise "Not too much". The taste can also be addictive. Salt Transfats and sugar help preserve food..The safe level of transfats is ZERO  Nev

I don't care. I'm still not giving up food.

My mum once told me 'If you don't eat, you don't shit. If you don't shit, you die.'

[facthunter]

You ARE what you eat. It's the only reason that I'm still around. Nev

[onetrack]

I love nice porterhouse steak - but I don't look like a steer yet, despite eating steaks for probably more than 60 years.

[facthunter]

Don't think I'd run that logic too far. .  Nev

[facthunter]

It's easy to be lacking in some trace elements and/or imbalance of vitamins.   Nev

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, nomadpete said:

I don't care. I'm still not giving up food.

My mum once told me 'If you don't eat, you don't shit. If you don't shit, you die.'

My Mum told her that!

[facthunter]

An experiment was done with dog where they drank water only with one group and fed "empty" refined food to the other group as well as the water. Guess which group became chronically sick first? Nev

[old man emu]

This cost-of-living crisis means that now it is wise to be critical about what our money can buy when doing the supermarket shopping. No longer is it just a matter of looking for the "Specials", but now one must look at the ingredients to see what is affecting the price.

 

Here's an example. The weather is getting warmer and so the flying insects are hatching out with the sole intention of being annoying, especially those ones which are drawn the room lights at night. So today I went to buy some insect spray at the supermarket. All the named brands were on display, further making the choice difficult. Their prices ranged from $5 to $10 for cans of about the same volume of product. However, hiding close by were some No-Name ones. These were priced from $2.50 to $3.50. 

 

So I compared the ingredient lists of some No-Names and some named. Lo and behold, they all had roughly the same composition. So now I've got something to deal with those light-seekers, and I'm a few bucks to the good. Better on my plastic than on their receipt. 

[willedoo]

I get a lot of mosquitos here and one thing I noticed is that the odourless Mortein spray is nowhere as effective as the regular stuff. It doesn't smell but it also doesn't work.