1
Can you cook without salt?
What is your answer?
Yes?
No?
I was asked this in an English teaching training. The mentor was using this question to emphasise something so important that we cannot miss in English teaching. Apparently, for her, the answer is. “NO”.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a very insightful session. But this figurative question really makes me wonder: is it a valid question tho?
Despite the fact that most people would say “NO”, for me, it is “YES”.
Actually, I rarely use salt in my cooking. Even though I use it, it would be a pinch or so. I thought I was weird like that until I met my boyfriend.
“Is it too light? Sorry, I don’t like to have too strong flavours in food.”
”No, it tastes good. Don’t worry about that. I don’t use much salt either.”
Probably it is because I was born and raised in Cantonese culture and food, where we prefer the original taste of food. Well, “prefer” isn’t the word I’m searching for; to be honest, I’d rather say “respect”, which I was told since I was a kid by my father, who was a sous chef before. But actually, I have been told food tastes like sponge without salt outside the Cantonese area. Well, fair enough; I have no idea what the sponge tastes like. I studied for my bachelor’s degree at a university in Shandong, in the north of China and then my master’s in Shanghai, which are famous for their savoury or delicate sauces. After that, I went to the US, where I was eye-opened when exposed to all the artificial flavours. Still, until today, in my early 30s, I still cannot get the sense of over-flavouring. It is neither about which one is more correct nor which one is a winner. Of course, I like to eat strong-flavoured food sometimes, like hotpot, pizza, beef stew, etc. I just feel lucky that I get to taste the original flavours, like I am able to see the facts and truth before being contaminated by social media, like I can stick to my own feelings instead of pretending or hiding due to social pressure.
“Can we cook without salt?”
So, yeah, while the mentor was saying “of course, no” and other mentees were nodding and agreed with it, I said nothing, but my mind drifted somewhere else:
“Why can’t we survive without salt? ”
Even more so,
“Why do we assume that everyone needs salt in cooking?”
2
Why do we assume that everyone needs salt in cooking?
What is your answer?
Yup, what a good question. It is hard to answer, isn’t it?
The first thought that came to my mind is that it is about the chances, the possibilities. We may see families using salt in cooking; we taste strong-flavoured dishes in restaurants; we see the little salt bottles or soy sauce on the table. We are in an environment where we are offered salt even though we already have it in our bowls. That might make us feel like salt is a must. It is like the swamp of social media, the overloaded information brainrot us. But we know it could be just an algorithm to dilute our brain filter, to confuse us with well-designed illusions, like we are just framed. Back in my university days and previous academic career days, we had some very intense statistics lessons; we made some assumptions about our theory, we ran some designs to research or model the possibilities, as well as their highly related factors such as culture, history, religion and lifestyle, not to mention the mega individual differences. Back then, I always felt like we lived in a spiderweb, trying to find the connection in it. You know what I mean. It is as if we assume these factors and test them. But what about other factors that we didn’t assume? In research, we tend to try our best to identify the factors to test and to control the “environmental factors”. But indeed, how do we actually categorise them, especially the “environmental factors”? It is a question to make me think twice when it comes to science: the trending topics, the high-tech research equipment, and the innovative findings.
On top of that, it is related to our ego, our pride, our arrogance — all are our default settings as human beings, like we design the default functions for different appliances or products. Yup, it is cliché. Yup, I am building a spiderweb here too — another default setting. What I mean is, like doing research, in daily life, we tend to assume things, make our judgments based on our experience and feelings, and interpret the world or even draw conclusions from it. Even worse, we “gauge” others’ thoughts by our own thoughts: well, I can’t cook without salt → food tastes so bland without salt → I can’t stand this → I don’t think anybody will like it → nobody can cook without salt. It happens to all of us. Let’s take “the habit of taking a shower” as an example. I grew up in Canton, where we have summer weather almost throughout the year. One shower a day really keeps a doctor away. At least, that’s what I think, for my mental health. Sometimes we take two or three showers in the boiling hot summertime. But I had my mind blown while studying in the north. They don’t take a shower every day, especially in the wintertime. Further than that, they take showers in a common shower place, called “澡堂 zao tang”, where 20-30 people can take showers at the same time, without any curtains, but you have your own shower stand. I was astonished, not only by the low showering frequency, but also by the zero privacy. Literally, I felt like a thunderbolt hit me the second I stepped into the 澡堂 zao tang. Luckily, I was saved by my friend who is from the north and taught me how these places work. Let’s be fair, it did help me to accept the body shame even though I was forced to. Surprisingly, this part of me was cured under such circumstances. I had a completely different understanding of this topic, and I had never had any experience like this. I wasn’t necessarily right about showers, but indeed, I was shaped by my habits and experiences, and then I arrogantly judged their showers. Even so, I still prefer a shower a day, alone. But also, I had no problem when I had to shower in something like 澡堂 zao tang before getting in the sauna in Finland.
