Small food notes

[redbird]

Thursday's discovery was that I still don't like pickled beets. (I grabbed a couple of pieces at a salad bar, thinking they were roasted beets, which I like.)

Last night's was that "no salt added" canned tomatoes are noticeably inferior to the ordinary kind. Or, at least, Del Monte's no salt added are inferior to Del Monte's regular canned tomatoes of the same sort (diced small, no other flavorings). The pasta sauce was still dinner, but rather flatter than usual. Since neither cattitude nor I is on a serious low-sodium regimen, I won't be getting these again. I decided to try them because, while not on such a regimen, it would do us no harm to get less sodium, so I'm keeping an eye out for places where I can reduce it without losing flavor I like. I don't put a lot of salt on my own food, so the main place I'm looking is packaged and other prepared stuff.

I'm noting this mostly so I don't forget and get those tomatoes again, and secondarily to suggest that if you're considering trying them, note that they do seem different and you might want to try them on a night when you're not cooking for company.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

If there's a Safeway anywhere near you, their "O Organics" low-salt canned tomatoes are just excellent. I think it's that they use good, flavorful tomatoes to make them, because there's no added flavoring.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I find a lot of foods (including tomatoes, eggs, potatoes, yeast breads, most soups), taste best to me with a *little* salt. They are commonly oversalted, but taking out all the salt is problematic. Salt is a preservative, which you don't need in something you're planning to eat that day. It makes things taste specifically salty, and you might not want that, either. But a small amount tends to brighten other flavors. I remember when my father grew tomatoes in the backyard, and we ate them for breakfast, minutes after picking them. Those tomato slices were better with a little sprinkle of salt than without. (*sigh* I miss cheese for eating with tomatoes like that. Rye bread, colby, and tomato did not need additional salt, because the cheese was already salty.)

It can be hard for individuals to know if they need to reduce salt, because the American Heart Association is pushing so hard for everybody over 2 years old to limit both salt and fat. The medical establishment regards it as a good idea rather uncritically, not trying to figure out for whom the incremental good effects are likely to be worth the strain of major dietary restrictions. Anyhow, when cooking without salt, it is possible to compensate for the brightening effect with sweet and/or sour, and distract from the flatness with something green-tasting (parsley, dill, basil) or spicy. There are a lot of foods that can be made with 1/2 the salt, or 1/4, and the difference won't be noticeable. For some things, you can cut the salt to 1/8 and not notice...but that usually requires some kind of compensation (for "flat" or "boring" rather than for "not tasting salty.") Or you may do better buying unsalted stuff and adding a small amount of salt at stove or table.

For low-salt spaghetti sauce, I'd use a dash of soy sauce instead of salt, increase garlic and mixed italian herbs, and add a little vinegar (red wine vinegar is best with tomato stuff, but I use cider.) For no-salt spaghetti sauce, I'd use even more sauteed garlic, and add a little crushed fennel along with the herbs. If the sauce tasted flat after adding the vinegar, I'd add either a pinch of sugar or a little dried orange peel.

[redbird]

I should clarify this. It wasn't a very low-salt dish to start with, since it contained bacon in noticeable quantities. Adding salt to the meal at the table didn't help: the tomatoes still tasted flat (the bacon, onions, and bell pepper did not). cattitude and I were speculating on the possibility that the company was using cheaper/lower-quality tomatoes in this product, believing they had a captive market for "no salt added" and competition for the ordinary canned tomato market.