November 18, 2011

On the omission of salt...

Thanks to my wonderful family, I have amassed a large number of handwritten recipes passed down from generation to generation.  I requested these recipes so I could scan them into my computer in order to preserve their image and share with any and all who may want them.  Three hundred scans later, my project is now complete (until I get more recipes) and I look forward to trying these recipes and sharing the results with you; along with an image of the recipe card, of course. 

In collecting these recipes, there were, in some instances, many versions of the same recipe.  Be it in card form, book form, newspaper clipping, or direct from a package label, it was fun to see the origin and evolution of a recipe as it was transcribed time and time again.  Some recipes were doubled, some had an ingredient tweaked here and there, some were modified drastically, but there was one constant throughout all recipes that were transcribed by Nonna from the original source.  All were written with the omission of salt or with the annotation of "(optional)" after the ingredient.

This was quite intriguing to me, as I often wondered why salt was not included in the ingredients list in most of the family recipes I already had.  More often than not, I found myself adding a little salt to round out the flavor, since that is how I am used to cooking.  I was curious to know if most sweets did not call for salt back when these recipes were printed or if Nonna made a conscious effort to exclude the ingredient when she copied the recipe to the card.  I now have my answer.

I am now curious to know why she excluded salt.  If anyone has any insights, please post away in the comment section.  Stay tuned for more recipes!

No comments:

Post a Comment