The chef in question is none other than José Andrés. He’s the founder of World Central Kitchen (WCK), which goes to world trouble spots to feed starving victims. On his weekly podcast, he recently proposed an unlikely substitute for demon salt…
José Andrés wokring the ‘front line’ at a WCK location in Gaza earlier this year…
José Andrés has made a name for himself in recent years as a humanitarian. But he was already a globally known and respected chef before that. And a master of many other skills. His reputation lends great wright to his opinions…
Simple – but serious?
Andrés is totally serious when he proposes plain black pepper as a substitute for salt. He apparently didint’ enlarge on how that works when he told a podcast questioner to try the hack. But I still vividly recall my own surprise – and skepticism when one of my culinary school instructors offered the same advice.
Salt has been prized and craved since ancient times. It’s a vital component of our diets because it makes foods taste better. All foods. Even sweets. Witness the current salted caramel craze. But it also plays a critical role in our nervous systems, as one of two elemental nutrients that mediate signal transfer between neurons.
Knowing that, one might well ask how can there be any real substitute for salt? The answer to that question is, we get all the salt we need and more – some of us much more – in our regular daily diets. We’re begged by nutritionists and doctors not to add extra salt to the foods we eat. Which leads to the obvious follow-up query: How can we boost the flavour of foods without adding more salt?
How pepper works
Plain Black Pepper is an ideal partner for Salt in what has become the world’s most-used primary-seasoning dance team. Like salt, pepper tweaks the taste buds to higher levels of sensitiviry, thus helping us taste more of the flavour that our foods naturally deliver.
“Pepper stimulates multiple senses including taste, olfaction [smell], and the common chemical senses [sweet, salt, sour, bitter and umani] (or chemesthesis),” ScienceDirect.com explains. “It may help to enhance the flavour of those foods to which it is added. Pepper conveys a number of health-related, preservative, and flavour functions in food, and may have an important role to play for those wishing to cut their salt consumption while not compromising on taste/flavour.”
But that’s not all
Andrés also notes that spices an have a similar effect, along with adding their own respective flavours to dishes. And some spices have been shown to enhance or mask the flavours of others, producing specific effects cooks have come to prize. For example, cinnamon can mask bitter tastes.
Andrés also points to sesame seeds as an all-round flavour enhancer for savoury and umami foods. Which ay be why we find in such a variety of Asian and Middle Eastern recipes. Other commenters have mentioned ground coriander seed and allspice as wide-spectrum flavour enhancers.
My take
I’ve long kept the coriander ‘secret’ in my back pocket as an option to produce, ‘different’ flavour experiences in certain dishes I love. So I can see how the same chemistry might also work with allspice in others. And the notion of experimenting with caraway seed (because it reminds me so poignantly of coriander) is now gnawing away at my curiosity.
Take time to experiment with the salt substitute ideas we’ve presented in this post. And never miss a chance to try something new in potential enhancing/masking spice combinations when the potential reveals itself!
~ Maggie J.