LOL, emerogork, this did get off topic, didn't it?

I don't salt the pasta water because Elery doesn't like salt, and so I salt mine at the table and we're both happy.

I do find using large pots of water to boil pasta odd, when it will cook easily in much less and I live in Michigan, surrounded by fresh water, so conserving is not tantamount. I've never found a use for pasta water, though. I make my own homemade pasta, generally, and I've tried to use the water to make bread but it just didn't work well, it threw off the hydration somehow. So I tried using it to make oatmeal. No. Just no. Same with rice and barley, they absorb too much water and the leftover pasta water just didn't work well. Maybe if I "fiddled" with the bread recipe.....

Annie

I guess Slevedog wraps it up. How silly it was of me to think that I could strike up a conversation about pasta water here in this cooking forum. I would not be so naive to think that I had discovered a new idea because I recall a few talk shows that touted it but had I listened to most of the thread here, I would have thought that it was a useless idea.

Now I see pages and pages of people discussing the use of pasta water for all sorts of creative applications.

I can now free up this thread for all the discussion of salt, taste, flavor and the like.

Mischief Managed......

Aquafaba.

You can make meringues from chickpea water...the goop in the can, or better, from soaked cooked chickpea water.

You can join a Aquafaba community to further discuss its joy. (the discussion of animal products will not be tolerated). : )

Might find a flour-and-water community.

Our plants are fascinating. Grains and seed, dried and ground. Rehydrated, their starches and proteins are used for thickening, emulsifying, and binding.

Add salt to the starch and protein party and you will have a different outcome. Add oil and heat and yet again, another reaction. Food science.

But...Annie...you salt your pasta when making it don't you?
As for pasta water, I think the discussion is pretty much do you save it and use it or toss it into the sink.

Emerogork, I notice that when folks don't agree with what you think of as your brilliant inspirations (and they may well be, just that others here don't think so), you get very p!ssy. It's not a good look IMO.

Discussions on the internet and in real life often veer off the original topic and down a side road. Trying to wrench the conversation in the direction you want it to go is a losing battle and just makes you look like a control freak. And, when conversations free-wheel they often end up looping back to the original topic- and bring up other interesting points on the way.

Getting back to pasta water, as I said before, I can't see the point myself. To be even more frank, I think it's obsessive. But if you want to do that, go right ahead.

I think the reason we're not talking about what to do with the pasta water is that those who have a use for it have already said their pieces and have moved on to other aspects they find interesting.

I'm glad to see that the people here who are using it in their sauces are thinning with it. I can see where the starch might help bind the sauce, as opposed to making it watery, making pasta water a better addition than plain water. Also, adding hot water to the hot sauce means you're not cooking it off while heating it up. This makes much more sense to me than the people on TV who talk about thickening their sauces with pasta water.

I also like Sleevendog's road from boil hydration to soup. :) I would do that. My cooking is not organized enough to make it happen often, and I don't boil enough for it to be profitable to keep the water over days--I'm more likely to use it for dirty rinsing dishes (the rinse where you're getting the food goo off). It's a good idea, though, especially if you already have non-potable wash water.

I agree to a point colleen. Nothing wrong with a curiosity about how starches and proteins work.

And no, not pages and pages of uses....discussions maybe... about the same 3 uses over and over. Saving some of the starch water, or the concentrated goop the op somehow achieves, then added to your sauce, will help emulsify/bind/cream your sauce.

Restaurants start a big pot or three, and use the same water using long colanders to cook their pasta. They find the best outcome is later in the shift when the water is very starchy. Ladle out a bit and add to an individual sauce portion, etc. It is not only already warm but it is starch....better than just plain water. Vats of stock used also.

I also like to know 'why' ingredients do what they do, but to expect ten random people to join in at any whim to discuss pasta starch is a stretch. lol. Especially when we are prepping for the upcoming holidays. Just accept that some will not give a hoot.

Off topic happens all the time and sometimes more interesting.

pasta water?

Oh, Emerogork, I apologize if I offended you. Certainly wasn't my intent. I often post when I'm tired and taking a break from a project and realize that I can come off as being abrupt.

I do cook pasta much like you do although I probably use more water. I've never paid attention to how much water is left after cooking it because I just dump into a colander & drain into the sink, probably more out of habit from the years and years that I thought you needed buckets of water to cook pasta.

I don't salt the water because DH is on a salt restricted diet.

I don't cook much pasta because of the gluten. If I don't eat gluten, my joints don't ache and my psoriasis goes away.

I do understand that pasta cooking water is supposed to be some kind of magic. That is, the water that results in a restaurant situation where they cook pounds & pounds of pasta in successive batches and in the same pot of water/ liquid. That isn't the same as a typical home situation when it's one batch for a meal and done. Although, with your method, I suspect that the liquid you have is approximating 'restaurant pasta water.' But the water that most home cooks are left with isn't the same and that's likely why we haven't developed uses for it or even given it much, if any, thought.

I do attempt to utilize other 'waste' liquids. Like the brothy substance left over when I cook garbanzos for hummus. Mostly, the liquids are used to mix with water, canned dog food (and psyllium husk powder for my elderly Sheltie.) Unless I have another immediate use for them like stew or soup. As I mentioned before, freezer space always seems to be at a premium in this house so I reserve it for more high value stuff like chicken broth. I've started simmering ham before baking (to remove salt) and I do save even that water and freeze in cartons to use when I cook beans, etc. So, I'm certainly sympathetic with your quest to find a use for your pasta water. I just don't have any good ideas on how to use it beyond those already mentioned. To sum it up, I shoulda' just kept my mouth shut. Again, I do apologize for being responsible for the thread taking a bit of a negative trend.

I've often thought of saving vegetable water when I steam veggies, but I never think of it. Although I did try it once, and it got moldy.

I think using pasta water, vegetable water for thinning a sauce would be a good idea. I used to use potato water in gravy, but again, it's hard to remember until after it's down the sink.

My freezer is usually pretty full. I did freeze some of the salty water from simmering ham as Ci_lantro does, but it eventually got thrown out. I never did get around to using it.

I put steamed veg juices into a glass and drink it later. Sometimes I mix them into a cocktail with a touch of vodka. It improves the cooking.

One thing I do miss in not draining pasta is that I would place a second strainer filled with fresh spinach under the pasta one. It wilts it out just right.

Do you mean the juice of steamed vegetables themselves or, considering the context of this thread, the water that condenses as you steam them? If the latter, that water probably has a lot of vitamins in it so good for you (both meanings) for conserving it. :) I steam veg in a steam oven, which is way convenient, but the water goes down the drain automatically. Still, I figure if half the vitamin C is lost because it's soluble, that still means that half of it stays! [edited with correction]

It does seem like you could do your pasta your old way if you wanted to wild the spinach. That starch goo you don't have enough uses for could just skip one. Or you could put some glass pebbles or similar in your pasta colander and pour over some plain (seasoned accordingly) heated water onto the spinach to get that perfect wilt.

Nothing nourishing ever goes down the drain if I can help it. If I cannot incorporate it into the meal and it is still edible, I consume it as a snack.

That is why I am looking at pasta water. In itself, it is not all that appetizing. It looks like, and has the consistency of, soured milk. I added to a turkey gravy just recently and feel that it did improve it. That will have to be tested a few more times though.

I don't use salt in my pasta water. I strain pasta into a bucket & use it to water outside plants after it cools down.

I wonder the nutrient benefits pasta water has for plants.
It is probably not wasted.

Vitamin A is not water soluble....so your steaming water won't have any of that in it. And I can't imagine what nutrients might be in pasta water....it's pretty well just cooked flour.
We throw away lots of things that contain valuable nutrients....shrimp shells come to mind, even if you boil them up for stock you are still tossing calcium. And bones of other things...sure you make bone broth....but there is still something left....but I am not chewing on shrimp shells nor boiled up chicken bones!
I sure don't believe in wasting food but frankly there is too much good stuff to eat without worrying about saving the water that has a little starch in it from the outside of the pasta I cooked in it.....I wash off more flour than that from the work surface when I make bread....and how about the grease on the cookie sheet where you haven't put a cookie when you bake? I am sure there are more nutrients in the crumbs on my bread board than in the water from cooking pasta.
Now if you are talking fish tank water....that's very good for plants!

Harold McGee, the scientist who studies the chemistry of cooking, recommends a way to cook pasta with very little water, which he claims is faster and more efficient than using a lot of water.

I was brought up partly in Italy and continue to use a lot of (salted) water brought to a rolling boil to cook mine. I like the way the pasta tastes when the salt has penetrated the pasta, an effect which no amount of salt added later can produce, I find. Marcella Hazan suggests 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt per pound of pasta. It seems like a lot, but then most of the salt goes into the water not the pasta -- and gets thrown out -- or not, if you reuse. Of course it is a matter of taste. I find that it is true that you can get used to and come to prefer a lot less salt, but not in cooking pasta--in my case.

Paul Breslin, of the Monnell Chemical Senses Institute, says that salt is added at the beginning of cooking to enhance sweetness and counteract unpleasant flavors and at the end of cooking to provide brightness. Most processed foods, especially bread products use way too much. That is because it is being used as a preservative to prolong shelf life and not to make food taste good (salt, sugar, and vinegar kill germs and prevent spoilage.)

As far as taste, it is true that most of what we taste is in fact perceived by the nose, and you can prove this by holding your nose when you eat. Only salt, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami are perceived by the tongue, scientists say (and perhaps elsewhere in the body, if you read science news feeds that claim to have found taste receptors in the stomach). Here is an excellent article about the effects of salt. https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/ingredients-101-salt-your-food-like-pros-0158753/

This is my favorite recipe for salted water. I haven't kept up with the reviews in several years... mental note to do that. I do salt pasta water as a matter of course, but I'll admit it probably doesn't make much difference. If you're a typical American like me you drown your pasta in sauce and rarely do you have a mouthful of plain, unsauced or uncheesed pasta. So whatever you chew will itself be mixed with "something" that will carry the salt.

Now if you're the type who drops one ladle of sauce on a plate of spaghetti, the taste of the pasta may come more into play. And here I disagree with those who suggest salting after serving as an equivalent, because that salt attacks the taste buds at first contact rather than gently while chewing food. (For those of us who chew, "surface area" expands exponentially between fork and swallow.) Sometimes that attack of salt is desirable - think pretzels - but many if not most times in cooking it should be within the dish. Think about the difference between that which you sprinkle or drizzle on top of your food versus mix in as an ingredient. Right now I'm thinking of scrambled eggs - I prefer salt mixed into them rather than sprinkled on after, yet the opposite is true for hot sauce.

As to emerogork's original question, I don't know if this would be considered a "use" or an "abuse" or if it's even scientifically sound, but I like to use a lot of boiling water so that when I dump it slowly into the sink it helps sanitize the strainer basket and drain.

Thanks for the Harold McGee reference, monarda. That was very interesting. His NYT article mentions that commercial chefs have discussed the possibility of bottling and selling their pasta water, since home cooks never make enough batches of pasta at one time to get it to a really starchy state, at least not like a commercial kitchen.

Here's an interesting article from someone who experimented with McGee's ideas;

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab.html

BTW, I know a lot of people who live in vans and RVs and they mostly use the pasta water (lots of it because they cook pasta the old way) for the soapy dishwater afterwards.

"... since home cooks never make enough batches of pasta at one time to get
it to a really starchy state, at least not like a commercial kitchen.

In one batch: one lb of pasta, my residual water is almost the consistency of raw egg yolk and is far too thick to feed to plants.

It is my guess that this is the difference between what I am saying to what some others are saying. Scarcely cover the pasta with water, stir and cook until done. Set aside to absorb the water.

Add small amounts of water if needed but the goal is to end up with all the water absorbed by the pasta. If you have added too much then drain it off and you have nicely thick, silky smooth, pasta water.

For me, it is an ingredient seeking to be included in more recipes.....

PS, I tried to watch that Salt Water video but the page is so packed with ads, ad-ons, and popups that I gave up. That source is now blocked from my browser.

Yes, sorry I wasn't clearer. The chef water thing was referring to pasta cooked the traditional way. There was a link to McGee's NYT article in the article I linked, but here's a direct one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/dining/25curi.html

foodonastump, we must be among those who don't use a lot of sauce (comparatively speaking) on our pasta. That's how it is (or was) served in Italy, not swimming in sauce.. In fact we often have it with just olive oil and garlic. Or with olive oil, garlic and mushrooms. Or Cacio e pepe: olive oil, black pepper, and romano cheese. We like the pasta to be nicely seasoned before dressing it with sauce. Bolognese sauce is (or was) traditionally served with just a scoop or so on top of the fettucine, not mixed in. I never heard of thickening the sauce with starch, to me that smacks of American style gravy -- or a bechamel (granted, a must for "northern"-style lasagne --- but times change and things evolve..

FWIW, I understand carbohydrates (starch, sugar) feed the soil microorganisms that dwell in soil and consequently provide nutrition and other benefits to plants

CarolB: I am sure but applying it in gops will only make it sit on the top of the soil. My Pasta water is thick to start with.

Yes it will feed the soil micros. Heavily salted may not be so good. That use would be for a larger pot of pasta water, not your thick concentrated goop. If I used it to feed my garden, compost pile, or worm composter, I would dilute it further by pouring it into the rain barrels.

Also different pasta brands will produce more starch than others as well as overcooking.

I so agree with this, ..."Paul Breslin, of the Monnell Chemical Senses Institute, says that salt is added at the beginning of cooking to enhance sweetness and counteract unpleasant flavors and at the end of cooking to provide brightness"

If you eat a whole food diet, whole grain, beans, seed, nuts, whole spice...no processed, canned, jarred, bottled, fast food, etc, you can place your salt where it is most needed.

Most fresh foods have natural salts but minimal.

I had a hot dog last weekend. Bought last year and dug out of the freezer while searching for something else...grass fed, organic, bla bla, and probably used celery seed natural salt, yawn, instead of other saltier methods...still salty as it should be and more salt than we are used to but delicious!

I just realized... my wheat dry pasta is whole grain and therefore very flavorful on its own (I haven't been counting the black bean pasta that's one of my favorites). I daresay white flour pasta might be lacking without salt. I do often nibble on tasty pasta without any sauce, and never send it swimming, though the red sauce I make is a ragout, and while it doesn't make the pasta overly saucy, it is lumpy! Lots of meat and vegetables. I have one or twice seen this overly saucy pasta people say is the American way in restaurants, but mostly not, nor at friends' homes. I don't care for it. I don't think it's the norm where I live. I am often bemused about how different food cultures are around the country.

Linda, thanks for the correction. I've been exhausted for a week and squished two thoughts together for a bad result!

"---And here I disagree with those who suggest salting after serving as an equivalent, because that salt attacks the taste buds at first contact rather than gently while chewing food. (For those of us who chew, "surface area" expands exponentially between fork and swallow.)---"

I am talking about cooking with salt later in the cooking process, not sprinkling salt on top after cooking. I am not a practitioner of Fletcherism. Not many people are. If you add salt in the beginning of cooking, there will be a lot of salt permeated deep throughout food that your tongue will never experience, but the salt will do your body harm just the same in full dose once they are in your stomach.

"Paul Breslin, of the Monnell Chemical Senses Institute, says that salt is added at the beginning of cooking to enhance sweetness and counteract unpleasant flavors and at the end of cooking to provide brightness"

I can't agree or disagree or question that statement, because it is just a statement of his subjective personal preferences.

But speaking of salt and providing brightness, here was how I used salt to provide "brightness". :-) :-) :-)

Fish, the only kind of meat that is translucent. chilled Himalayan salt block with built-in LED lights is used to accentuate the freshness and delicateness of sashimi fish slices.

dcarch

LindaC, I do add salt to the sauce, but usually much less than the recipe calls for, as Elery really doesn't care for salt. I don't care much for pasta. (shrug) As a result, we seldom eat it at all, but seldom is still more often than I'd choose to eat it left to my own devices. After the girls moved out and before I married Elery, it was a matter of several years that I was not required to consume any pasta at all, and that worked fine for me, LOL.

CB, I actually like whole wheat better than the traditional white pasta, which seems to me very much like eating paste, and I can't tell the difference between boxed pasta and gluten free either. I know, I'm a heathen. I don't care for cheese all that much either.

I did make some homemade pasta and I put together two large pans of Joey's Killer Lasagna today. I didn't cook the pasta sheets before baking the lasagna, so no pasta water to deal with at all...

Annie

Apparently at the Monnell Institute of Taste and Smell they did an experiment with children. As a group, children prefer a higher level of both salt and sweetness in their diet than do adults. The researchers gave a group of children some unsalted food and a salt shaker and told them to add as much salt as they liked. The result was that no matter how much salt the children used, it was still a lot less than is used by food manufacturers in making processed food. So home cooks don't have to worry. You can cut your salt intake just through cooking things at home from scratch. Most food already contains salt, so you don't really have to add much -- or you can add it judiciously to certain things -- like pasta -- according to taste. It does make food, especially bitter food, like many vegetables, more palatable. Salt is a necessary ingredient for life. Too much may be bad, but too little will kill you rather quickly (see hyponatremia). It's a question of finding the right balance.

One more thing -- I just checked the Serious Eats article about cooking pasta in a smaller amount of water.

At the end of the piece the author warns that this works fine with small pasta shapes, like, say gemelli, which he uses, but does work not for longer shapes like spaghetti, linguine, or fettucine. I imagine is it the perfect way for to cook, say, pastina or orzo, which are rather tiny, but not angel hair. He is also in the "salt the water to make it taste good" camp.

I like his idea of bringing the water to a boil and then covering it and taking it off the stove to continue to cook -- like with coddled eggs. My SIL cooks fresh corn this way, too. There are many ways to skin a cat.

Ok, another 2c here. After this I think I will start charging.

Corn for me is a stalk-to-plate commodity, no cooking. Chilled is even better. As far as I see it, hot corn is only to melt the butter and that is OK but it doesn't have to be that way all the time. If you boil it, is there a use for Corn Water? :)

Sometimes I think that these professional chefs are only finding another hole from which they can blow smoke. Long pasta doesn't cook well in minimum water? Maybe it is nothing more than finding the right pot to cook it.

Rachel Ray apparently had patented a long, oval, pot and uses it to cook spaghetti in less water.

I just read about cooking spaghetti, fettuccine and even lasagna noodles in a Pain de Mie pan with minimal water. I wonder if it failed for that chef only because the pan used was the typical round stock pot instead and too much of it was standing above the water.

BTW: "Salt to taste" includes using no salt at all, doesn't it? I am in the Salt it Later camp. It may get me into trouble here but I prefer the original taste of food. Remember, salt is a mineral, not a spice.

As far as I see it, most salt uses, along with hot spices, are there to cover up problems or to clobber out original flavors. If one really wants to use them, use sparingly.

I am an admirer of Kenji López, Harold McGee, and Christopher Kimball. Not to question their contribution in food science, but let's not forget that they are not trained in science:

Kenji López – MIT, degree in architecture.

Harold McGee - graduating with a B.S. in Literature. He went on to do a Ph.D. on the romantic poetry of John Keats

Christopher Kimball - a degree in Primitive Art

dcarch

Well, any number of great discoveries/inventions have come from people who were trained in quite different fields. I don't see that as a huge negative, dcarch.

does work not for longer shapes like spaghetti, linguine, or fettucine

Unless you break it in half, which I always do anyway, since I don't like using my giant stockpot to cook an ounce or two of pasta.

ETA Now that I think about it, everyone my mom's age that I knew always broke spaghetti in half when putting it into the pot, even her Neapolitan and Sicilian friends who were cooking for huge families and certainly used pots big enough for any pasta ever made to lie flat.

2nd Edit: I just saw a post in a different forum where water use for van dwellers and campers is being discussed where someone says she uses pasta water and potato water to make flowerpot bread. I'm not sure what advantage there is to that, if any, but it would use it up, I guess, if there's not too much.

"Now that I think about it, everyone my mom's age that I knew always broke spaghetti in half when putting it into the pot,"

Why did they do that?
I am curious, did they also break fettuccine, angel hair, and lasagna in half too?

"---Well, any number of great discoveries/inventions have come from people who were trained in quite different fields. I don't see that as a huge negative, dcarch.----"

As I said, I have a lot of respect for them. Nothing negative. However, those times when they recommend methods which have to do with life safety and life and deaths, they should include a disclaimer that they are not scientists, or have any qualified formal medical training.

A scientist who is very much into food, for instance is Nathan Myhrvold, founder of The Cooking Lab, a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics. Was chief technology officer at Microsoft.

dcarch

Yep....always break pasta,,,well almost always. If I am cooking a couple of pounds of it, I use a big pot and don't break it....but 8 inches of noodle are lots easier to handle than 16 inches.
And no, Of course you don't break lasagna noodles....but I do break lunguini

And Carol Baker...apparently you are not a fan of layers of flavor? Nor finely nuanced dishes and sauces? Just plain meat and potatoes with perhaps some raw vegetables on the side? Your choice, of course, but you are missing lots of good food.

There seems to be a type...mostly men that I have observed, that grab the salt shaker as soon as plate of food is in front of them and llberally salt everything...just because. Likely they were raised by, and married, a woman (being sexist here) who never salted nor seasoned anything. I once watched a man go through the lunch buffet ( that i had prepared) take a ham sandwich, cole slaw and a potato salad, sit down, open the sandwich and sprinkle a good amount of salt over everything. And I know a woman whose recipe for potato salad was 10 pounds of potatoes a dozen hard boiled eggs...miracle whip and seasonings like 1/4 tsp dry mustard and 1/4 tsp pepper. I don't think anyone could possible detect 1/4 tsp of dry mustard in 10 pounds of potatoes and a dozen eggs.

Unless you break it in half

Sacrilege!

As I recall, spaghetti used to come uncut -- with a bend in the circa yard-long bunches -- so maybe that's the origin of breaking the spaghetti. You can still get it that way in specialty stores.

I am really interested to learn that McGee's background is literature. I really would like to read his book on Keats. James Beard trained to be an opera singer, Julia Child majored in history. Heston Blumenthal has no formal training as a chef. (All this is from a quick google). But all these people seem to have paid their dues.

The chemistry of food, while interesting is only part of the story -- food is social and aesthetic, so a liberal arts or sociological background, or merely being a sensitive and informed observer, seems to me appropriate for a food journalist.

As I see it, cooking is a folk art passed on by long, collaborative, mostly anonymous tradition mostly of amateurs, mostly women -- and a few great professionals who sum up the work of the amateurs and transmit the work of the amateurs. And as with folk music, almost every amateur has at least one or two dishes they do really well. There is no right or wrong, just an array of traditional, or new, practices.

I have learned to eat and really like a lot of food made without salt -- rice, bread -- Tuscan bread, for example, is made without salt -- but you put salt--or salty food on it, salt and olive oil, or butter and anchovies, for example.. But on the whole I sympathize with what James Beard said in his entry on salt in the (1949) Fireside Cookbook (my mother's favorite): "without salt you have nothing." The word "salad", traditionally containing bitter greens, comes from "salis" and means "salted". Beard quotes the old proverb -- "a counsellor for salt".

I am curious, did they also break fettuccine, angel hair, and lasagna in half too?

Yeah, except for angel hair.. Lasagne was broken to a size that would fit the pan.

I recall when Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey went to Italy and everywhere they went all the restaurants served short chopped spaghetti. It turned out to be the work of a villain named The Mad Spaghetti Chopper. Quick Draw's task became to find him. I forget what the Chopper's motivation was....

OMG: It brings back memories of how my brother destroyed my guitar playing "El Cebong".....

"Unless you break it in half

Sacrilege! "

Unholy....

"And Carol Baker...apparently you are not a fan of layers of flavor? Nor
finely nuanced dishes and sauces? Just plain meat and potatoes with
perhaps some raw vegetables on the side? Your choice, of course, but you
are missing lots of good food."

I am curious how you figured that. I an strongly in favor of separation of layers and state. That is why I do not add salt when cooking unless it is absolutely needed. As mentioned earlier, cooking salt into the food distributed it throughout the item being cooked creating a homogeny. A few gains on top instead gives a strong salt attack while using far less salt.

For example, when I make a stew, I cook the celery, carrots and finally the potatoes keeping them all separate saving the water. Brown the meat (with spices) and make the gravy then add bay leaf, vegetable and pasta water as needed. Stew the meat until it falls apart and then add the veggies. All flavors are separate but mix by choice at the discretion of the consumer.

Spaghetti sauces similar. I add the chopped peppers late in the brewing.

I do use a little salt in cooking. But when I hear people on TV talk about "layers of flavor" what they're trying to convey is salting the salt! They use so much salt, like the man Linda mentioned who salted the ham sandwich without tasting, that they can't perceive it unless there's a lot. They're used to mentally subtracting the salty taste to find the taste of the food, and without that saltiness the food seems bland. UGH.

I don't break the spaghetti! I put one end in the boiling water in a small pot, and as soon as it softens enough to bend without breaking (it doesn't take long!), I ease the rest under the water. No, one end doesn't get perceptibly more cooked than the other.

OTOH, my Italian BFF taught me, if the pasta won't twirl nicely, just cut it up on your plate. ;)

Pillog, Ham is already very salty. So are mayonnaise, salad dressing, etc. All are processed foods! French ham sandwich, jambon beurre, uses unsalted butter as a taste contrast with the salty ham. But articles cited in the first part of our thead stress that restaurant chefs use more salt than home cooks. There are many reasons for this, people are accustomed to it and like it -- also it makes people spend more on drinks which have a high profit margin (that's my personal conspiracy theory). Salt also makes you want to eat more. Humans have a tremendous survival drive to seek out salt because it is necessary for survival and needed by every cell in the body. But the natural drive is comes from the past when salt was a very scarce and valuable resource -- as were calories---especially fats, now the problem is over abundance.

OK, I gave in and prepared a pasta dish strictly according to the directions. I cooked Ronzoni #21 Large Shells with a lot of water and the recommended salt. I used the strainer method to wilt the spinach leaves. Prepared the sauce and fresh grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

Everything was SALTY. I used little of the cheese. Even the spinach was salty. My tomato sauce has no salt added but even that tasted salty.

It may well be that since I never salt anything when cooking that I have become accustomed to not having that much salt. Anyway, I began to wonder if I could smell salt in the air...

As I see it, when the cook salts the water, it takes away my choice to control the salt. On the other hand, if someone grabs the salt shaker before tasting the meal then it is an insult to the chef.

=======

One additional quirk with cooking this pasta with a lot of water: Most shells end up being as single in the sauce. Many are nested as double and few are triple in one. On the other hand, minimum water will make many many more double up leaving fewer as single.

I prefer the mouth feel of the changing densities of pasta from single shells to multiple shells as one. A single nest of three has the mouth feel of a twirled fork of spaghetti.

Yes, Monarda, the ham, etc., being salty was my point. Someone who salts a ham sandwich before even tasting it is way over the edge on the wanting more salt meter.

I don't disagree with you about chefs' motives. I've recently met a number of restaurant chefs who knew how to cook their menus but didn't have any underlying cooking knowledge. More like doing factory work without an underlying knowledge of how to make stuff.

These famous cooks come on TV and talk about salting in layers. I've met the results in fine dining restaurants. And have sometimes had to send back the food for being inedibly salty. I find that fine dining and fast food alike are just swimming in salt most of the time, which is one reason I dislike going out so much.

I remember when dried spaghetti noodles came in two different lengths, long spaghetti and the shorter version. Now, all I see in the stores is the short version.

Those long noodles were sure fun to slurp up off the plate, one strand at a time. I think that's why Mom started breaking the noodles in half before cooking them.

Annie, I prefer whole wheat pasta to the white flour version, too. More flavor and toothier.

I also seldom eat out due to excessively salty restaurant food - especially at Italian restaurants. Getting back to the original question about uses for pasta water; I recently heard on the Splendid Table radio show an Italian pasta recipe where the pasta water is essential. I don't remember what the dish is called but it contains only pasta, shredded cheese, black pepper, olive oil, and pasta water. Whoever had called in didn't know about adding the pasta water. Sorry, I can't remember any other details.

This strikes an interesting turn here. I would imagine that pasta water, being from a type of wheat, would be fully expanded with the water already so I can't see that it would be a thickener as in adding water/broth to flour/grease roux to make gravy.

It would, however, add a silky agent to a mix not unlike including olive oil or melted butter at the last minute to spaghetti sauce. I seem to recall that re-hydrated Chia seeds do the same thing. It would change the mouth feel.

Just a thought to help develop the thread.

I agree with the problem of incredible salt in restaurant food especially since I have cut at least 90% of the salt from my own cooking. I watch in aghast as TV/video chefs have a bowl of salt right there on the counter and add it by the handful to sauces and items being prepared. My guess is that they don't consume what they prepare, it is all for show.

As far as I care, salt belongs more on the table than in the kitchen.