piedmont wrote:
>
> Is seasoning a crutch?
>
> For most of my life I had a love affair with salt. Regardless of
> vegetable or meat I immediately salted and salted heavily. Until of
> recent years I have 'come off' the salt addiction.
>
> Which got me thinking about how much seasoning is acceptable and doesn't
> take away from the flavor of the meat I'm Q'n.
>
> Are we overloading our Q to the point of losing out on the natural
> flavor of the meat?
>
> Is the current trend of blazing hot additions so hot that you couldn't
> tell what it was you were eating?
>
> Is the mega seasoning trend to do with the fact that most of the meat is
> now soaked in water and or frozen which breaks the cells down and water
> loss occurs, compared to a freshly butchered meat?
>
> I'm on a mission to try to find a meat source for my Q where the meat is
> never frozen nor soaked in so called broth or water. I have a theory
> that fresh meat if cooked well, will end up with a natural concentration
> of salt from the water evaporation.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I do like and think there is a place for seasoning
> of meat, such as garlic, onion, rosemary, etc.. but it seems we
> culturally have a gross affinity for salt and pepper.
>
> What do you think or have you tried already to reduce the amount of
> seasonings?
>
> I have heard suggestions here in the past of minimal seasoning for Q and
> I'm going to try a few cuts of meat without any seasonings at all so I
> can 'remember' what pure meat tastes like and build from there.

I use very little salt in my regular cooking which routinely gets rave
reviews. I'm sure some of the folks on food network such as mr hell's
kitchen would give me crap about the fact that my cooking tastes like
the food I cooked, not a salt lick, but I'd give him hell right back.
For my BBQ I do use kosher salt in my dry rub, but it is less than 25%
of the content of the rub.