Did the wartime generation salt their food more than we do today?

This thread has opened my eyes to salt! I routinely bring out the salt shaker at dinner time and add it to the meal without tasting first. Clearly it is a habit of a lifetime which I must now attempt to break. Now that I think about it, none of my three daughters even own a salt shaker and when we eat there we automatically ask for salt?.I’m surprised we haven’t been lectured about our terrible salt habit.

Off point a bit but my family lived in Egypt too merlot Gran! so I grew up with a lot of Middle Eastern cooking as well as the French and Italian foods of my family

My mum and grannies used to always put salt in boiling pots of potatoes & veg. I don't salt while cooking, but do over my dins as most things taste nicer with a wee drop in it...bad I know. My granda had greenhouses of tomatoes when I was a child and there was always salt cellars sitting in them so when you picked a fresh tomato you could cover it in salt!

I think there was more salt used long ago and it was added when cooking. Mary Berry uses this technique apparently. Think we have become frightened to salt when cooking in case it's overdone. Recall reading Gordon Ramsay told Joan Collins to leave his restaurant when she asked for salt and pepper for the food she was eating. His philosophy he had cooked it as it should be.

inishowen

My mum salted everything as she believed it was good for you. On a very hot day she would say you need some salt!

Wimbledon tennis players were routinely given salt tablets too.
Wonder if that's still the case?

Maybe what we now see as excess use of salt goes back to the days when the majority of people did hard manual labour (yes, I know, some still do) and walked everywhere meaning they needed the salt to compensate for sweating? As has already been mentioned, salt was used as a preservative pre general freezer ownership. Were people just accustomed to the salt taste? It is relatively recent that the health dangers of salt have been recognised.
I don’t use salt in cooking but, I must have salt on chips. I eat them so rarely, I doubt it will do me much harm.

Good point about smoking, Maw. I hadn't thought about that. My father and grandfather both smoked pipes. Their tastebuds must have been affected.

One of my earliest memories is learning to eat a boiled egg. I must have been about three and we were living in Egypt.

Dad would take the top off the egg and sprinkle a couple of pinches of salt on the side of the plate. It was important to have salt in our diets so I learned to dip my bread soldier in the salt and then into the egg.

Looking back I don't think my mother bothered much with salt in cooking once we returned to the UK when I was twelve. My grandmother, on the other hand, was heavy handed and there would be salt and pepper all over the tablecloth at the end of a meal. Grandpa was never very accurate with his aim so bouts of sneezing were not uncommon

When I married I added salt to water for boiling potatoes but for some reason we only bothered with the salt and pepper shakers (wedding presents of course) on a Sunday.

Nowadays I rarely add salt to anything due to DH's health issues. I mostly steam or stir fry vegetables and use low sodium stock cubes for casseroles.

I don't understand why TV chefs add so much salt to dishes. James Martin just shrugs and says, 'I'm from Yorkshire,' as though that gives him some kind of immunity from high blood pressure and heart disease. Well, it doesn't!

I wonder if they used even more in Elizabethan times? Thin Shakespeare and King Lear!

I remember people putting salt on the edge of their plate as quite widespread, and I still find many unsalted food bland. However I also noticed when I visited a friend in the USA that all their food tasted very salty, sometimes totally spoiling the taste.
We DID have herbs during the war, but we grew our own. Most of Mum's spices were years old!

Oh yes! Georgesgran unsalted butter is horrible. Sometimes they serve it in cafes with toast or a scone! ?

Food was much blander surely - my mother was an adventurous cook but even she would not have heard of half of what I have in my spice cupboard!
Think of what constituted a hotel dining room “meal out” - Brown Windsor soup, overcooked roast beef or lamb, soggy vegetables and maybe trifle (with Sherry if particularly daring- in fact it would be called “ Sherry trifle” !)
My father always added salt so Mum used to cut down on seasoning her cooking to compensate.
People also smoked more and I genuinely think this affects ones sense of taste.
Another difference would have been that prepared food was not available (other than a Fray Bentos pie) and we use “convenience” items much more - have you ever looked closely at the ingredients?
So in a word, “Yes” they were less aware of the dangers of salt but perhaps different lifestyles (more physical wok, walking etc) meant that it was not as harmful as in today’s sedentary society.

If you observe people in cafes it's the older ones who shake loads of salt over everything, I think out of habit. I watched a guy shaking a salt grinder all over his plate. Nothing came out, obviously, but he still ate his food!

Lots of old sayings on here bringing back memories of home. I use salt in the water to cook vegetables - I’m sure one of the chefs (Jamie or Ina Garten) said to use plenty as you’re only salting the water and very little migrates into the food.
I’ve gone from very low BP and a recommendation to eat more salt to high BP and to cut it out - can’t win these days?

Anyone use unsalted butter? Just unpleasant grease to me.

My mother used to add salt to vegetables when boiling, and rubbed on a pork joint, as well as lots added to potatoes and with a boiled egg! I use no salt in cooking and only really have a dash of salt with chips or roast potatoes.
As a child I used to take the salt cellar, tip salt into my hand and eat it like that? despite this I suffer from low blood pressure now rather than high? I use spices a lot in my cooking so don’t miss salt although my mothers cooking was heavily spiced too!

My mum salted everything as she believed it was good for you. On a very hot day she would say you need some salt!

Most definitely they used more salt. I shop for my father who is in his 90s and I am astounded at how often I have to get him another packet of salt. He has now swapped his salt pot on the table for a bowl of salt which he sprinkles liberally over any meal. (Not the posh salt, just ordinary table salt.) Occasionally I tell him he shouldn’t be having so much salt but mostly I manage to restrain myself and think that he’s got to a grand old age and if he enjoys it then let him carry on. I think this over his alcohol consumption too.

Apart from hidden salt in foods there’s so much sugar in some savoury foods as well eg ketchup, baked beans etc.

I mistakenly bought 3 tins of reduced sugar baked beans. I’ll be honest, they were tasteless. The 2 unopened tins are still lurking in the back of the cupboard and won’t come out unless I’m stuck.

It is a balance, like everthing else. You will make yourself ill with too little salt, which is just as bad for you as too much. Think about it, we do need some salt, the first treatment any emergency will receive is a saline drip!

I have a Sunday morning ritual of two soft boiled eggs for breakfast. I couldn't eat them without salt.

Yes, I think people did use lots of salt. I have to follow a low sodium diet as my kidneys cannot deal with excess salt. I don’t cook with it, I use herbs and spices for flavour instead. I don’t add it to my plate either. I think people are becoming more aware of how much salt there is in processed foods.

My father used way too much salt on his food and died of a heart attack at 72.

My Nan and Mum always used plenty of salt in their cooking. I never use it to cook veg of any type and we always buy a low salt version of ketchup, gravy granules, beans etc if there is one available. (I don’t eat the beans or use ketchup) The only things I really use salt for is cucumber and tomatoes in my salad! Probably shouldn’t but not the same without it!

My parents used salt in everything too much in fact. They had no fridge just s larder when we were young it was used as a preservative. I don't salt food when cooking but sprinkle on a little Anglesey sea salt on my food,

In those days we always put salt in the cooking water and there was always a cruet on the table. We didn’t use so many herbs and spices yet everything seemed more tasty. Meat had more fat and ham and bacon was not processed..

I don't use much salt but my mother did. It didn't seem to do her any harm as she reached the age of 100.