"kosher salt" news and stories

A cast-iron skillet is an indispensable cooking tool, but it can be tricky to clean and maintain.

Salt is an essential component of cooking and in a professional kitchen, chefs are lucky enough to have a sous-chef to offer a second taste opinion. Whenever I eat out, it's one of the things I notice right away, because both under- and over-seasoning ruin the dish for me.

According to a recently released study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, many restaurant chains are guilty of overloading their meals with salt, thus increasing millions of customers' risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, Nearly 85 percent of the adult-sized meals at 10 popular chain restaurants have more than the recommended daily limit for total sodium intake -- 2,300 milligrams, or roughly one teaspoon of table salt.

Most home cooks are keenly aware of the connection between excessive salt consumption and high blood pressure which results from the body's need to dilute high concentrations with additional water. As a result, home cooks tend to err on the side of caution and don't use enough salt to bring out the best of each dish.

So, how do you know if you're using enough salt?

Get Jennifer's smart seasoning and salt-busting tips after the jump.

Sit down and prepare yourself for one of the most ridiculous stories to hit the wire in a while.

According to Examiner.com , a retired barber Joe Godlewski was getting sick of seeing so many television chefs gravitate towards kosher salt that he said: "What the heck's the matter with Christian salt?" and has created his own Blessed Christians Salt to compete. What makes his salt so wonderfully Christian? It's sea salt blessed by an Episcopalian priest. Godlewski (inspired by his name?) wants to "keep Christianity on the table, in the household, however I can do it," and claims that it has at least as much flavor and beneficial minerals as kosher salt.

The ignorance in all of this just makes my head hurt. Let's back up to the world of kosher salt. It's not a branded label to sell a religion. It's a type of salt with increased surface area on the crystals, which absorbs blood more efficiently (to stay in line with Jewish dietary law). It is not blessed, but rather examined to make sure that the food and its process are, well, kosher. Television chefs aren't using it to advertise Judaism, but because it's easy to pinch and distribute.

But it gets "better": If the guy succeeds with this project, he'll begin an entire line of Christian-branded foods including rye bread, bagels, and pickles.The kosher salt thing just reeks of ignorance, but this... I never thought Anti-Semitism and money paranoia would extend to any food a Jewish person (along with the rest of the world!) eats. Will this guy go so far as to include unleavened bread as well?

But maybe it's just me. Do you folks watch the use of kosher salt and feel a sudden urge to convert?

I always have a big jar of kosher salt next to my stove. However, I don't just use it to season the food I cook. Every time I use my big cast iron skillet, I grab a handful of kosher salt and use it to scour the inside of the pan. This way I protect the seasoning of the pan from the harshness of soap and still get all the charred bits of food off the bottom of the pan.

There are lots of foods that can do double-duty like my jar of kosher salt. Our friends over at AOL Food have put together a photo gallery with 23 Weird Household Uses for Food. They've got foods that can help with to clean drains, keep bugs and pests at bay or clear a clogged drain. Their salt tip? Work a good amount of salt into a grease stain on an item of clothing before washing to help remove the stain.

If you have a food tip to share, please leave a comment!

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Some of you may already know that I enjoy eating the occasional gloriously messy mango whilst perched over the sink. As you can see from the above pic, that's not the only way I like to savor this supremely refreshing tropical fruit.

Years ago a friend hipped me to the practice of sprinkling my mango with salt and hot sauce. His wife was from Guyana and she always had a bottle of homemade Scotch bonnet pepper sauce. Actually it wasn't so much a sauce as a fiery mix of chopped bright orange and yellow peppers floating in vinegar. This wasn't the first time I encountered this combination though. Back in my college days me and some friends used to have contests to see who could eat the most Patak's mango pickle. Straight out of the jar, mind you, with little more accompaniment than pappadam.