Lena B Katz wrote:

> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Bob Pastorio wrote:
>
>>Lena B Katz wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Bob Pastorio wrote:
>>>
>>>A bit more or less of most ingredients
>>>
>>>>won't materially affect the dish. Like everybody's Aunt Minnie cooks
>>>>by the handful and it still works.
>>>
>>>hence why most recipes call for "kosher salt" when they want a different
>>>grind...
>>
>>As far as I'm concerned, kosher salt is an affectation unnecessary for
>>virtually all recipes. It's bigger chunks of salt than table salt.
>>NaCl. That's all. Different brands are different-sized. Some have
>>anti-caking agents, some don't. All sound and fury...
>
>
> different sizes affect how quickly it dissolves and can radically affect
> taste (that's the physicist in me talking). leastaways, my pretzels made
> with table salt always taste saltier
> than the storebought ones.

Sure. With pretzels, the larger crystals take longer on the tongue to
dissolve. But for cooking, it makes no difference.

>>>OTOH, having tastetested colored gelatin (with surprising results), i
>>>realize that people don't know what their taste buds tell them, anywhoo.
>>
>>How, um, interesting.
>
> makes a great parlor game or science experiment (or, try both in one go!)

Did it every day in all my restaurants. One time I advertised a
dessert that included a raspberry coulis. We were hammered and had
only made about 40 portions of the coulis for the desserts. Later,
doing our daily analysis, we counted something over 100 orders on the
guest checks for it. I asked my pastry chef how he'd done it. He
looked around to make sure no one heard and said, "Daily's Strawberry
Daiquiri Mix."

Said if you held it in your right hand it was strawberry. Hold it in
your left and it's raspberry. We got no complaints, no questions or
comments that were anything but glowing.

Didn't do it again, but learned something...

Pastorio