The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [89]
But the other 92 percent of us can handle just about all the salt we feel like eating. Why public-health officials would want the entire population to act as if we were allergic to salt is beyond me, especially since nobody has ever been able to demonstrate that moderate salt restriction makes much of a difference to anyone. It’s like making everybody wear eyeglasses just because a few of us need them. Yet that’s what most government health authorities urge. They never bother to calculate the profound benefits that scrumptious food can bring to our otherwise desperate lives. In a thousand-plus pages of federal nutrition reports I was unable to locate any instance of the words “delicious,” “delectable,” “savory,” or “yummy.” And the committees writing the reports did not include one noted chef, even though they are devoted to telling America, in the most heartbreaking detail, how we should eat.
The Yanomami may win popularity contests in the blood pressure industry, but they really have nothing to tell us about how to live. Their hormone systems are in a constant and unusual state of alertness against the loss of any sodium at all, almost as though their condition were an illness; injury and bleeding can be disastrous for them. And you would be appalled to read anthropologists’ accounts of how the Yanomami behave when they’re not having their blood pressure taken: almost half of all Yanomamo men have killed somebody, and a third of Yanomamo deaths are the result of violence! Most of these homicides are part of an endless cycle of revenge between warring villages. Killers enjoy high social status and get many more wives than men who have not killed. (I think the Yanomami consider more wives a good thing.) All Yanomami live in constant terror of violent death. They also take psychedelic drugs.
By all accounts, the Yanomami are a bunch of bloodthirsty maniacs who make Abu Nidal look like a scoutmaster. Personally, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if their tasteless behavior were due entirely to salt deficiency. I doubt that the blood pressure industry is looking into this.
Growing up in a hysterical antisalt environment, a whole generation of America’s future homemakers lack the slightest notion of how to cook with it and how the various types of salt taste and behave. Here are some hints: Water for pasta should be vigorously salted before the pasta goes in (a tablespoon for each quart and four quarts of water for a pound of pasta) or the noodles themselves will taste bland no matter how well you salt the sauce. The same goes for potatoes. But dried peas and legumes should be salted at the end of their cooking; otherwise their skins will harden and split. Usually, salt added at the table becomes the dominant flavor, doesn’t bind the other tastes together, and leaves you with a salty aftertaste. But sometimes you love the feeling of salt crystals against your tongue, as on pretzels, crackers, and chips.
Don’t salt fried foods before you cook them or they will become soggy in the fryer, but be sure to salt them immediately before eating. Food eaten cold needs more salt in cooking than food served hot. Add salt to your salad at the very last minute or the greens will wilt; tossing coarse salt into a salad immediately before serving it (not into the dressing) will add a sparkle and a crunch.
If you feel a bit less anxious now about salt and are ready to begin exploring the wonderful world of salt, I have a terrific highsalt dish for you to try, which I discovered at a restaurant in New York’s Chinatown.
Salt-and-Pepper Shrimp
The Yun Luk Rice Shoppe on Doyers Street in Chinatown was among the best Cantonese restaurants in New York ten