Kait and Erik are staying at our place in Toronto while we're in Spain, and one of the first things they asked was where we keep the salt shaker.
Cue a small domestic crisis. We don't have one. We hadn't even noticed.
It's not that we don't salt our food. We do. There's a jar of ground sea salt next to the stove that goes in while we're cooking, and a little dish of flaky finishing salt for after. Salt has a place in our kitchen, it just doesn't have a seat at the table. By the time the food reaches us, it's salted. That's the whole point.
Which is why Spain has been throwing us off.
Almost nothing here arrives salted. Meats, fish, even the tomatoes (unless you specifically ask for salt) all come to the table plain. A little dish of salt shows up alongside, and the salting is left to you.
I don't think I love it.
If I order a steak medium rare, I don't expect the kitchen to bring it out raw with a pan and tell me to finish the job. Cooking it is the chef's call. They know the cut, they know the heat, they've done this thousands of times. Salting feels like the same kind of decision. The chef knows how much salt the dish needs. They tasted it. I haven't. Handing me the salt dish at the end is handing me half the job.
I get the argument on the other side. Respect for the ingredient, respect for the eater, let the tomato taste like a tomato. But there's a reason we go out to eat instead of staying home with a tomato and a salt dish. We came for the cooking. Salt the food.
Anyway. Sorry Kait and Erik. The coarse sea salts are in the top cupboard. The Maldon for seasoning is above the sink, in the tomato-stamped pot.