Stop Seasoning. Start Deciding.

Salt at the end is a confession that you weren't paying attention earlier.

29 September 2026

Most cooks treat salt like a garnish — something sprinkled over a finished dish to wake it up. That is exactly backwards. Salt isn't flavour. Salt is a series of decisions made throughout cooking that determine what you will actually taste.

Pasta water should be aggressively salted because that is the only moment the pasta itself absorbs anything. Meat salted an hour before cooking draws moisture out and then back in, seasoning the flesh rather than just its surface. Onions salted as they sweat collapse faster and taste sweeter. Each of these is a different decision, with a different purpose, made at a different time.

The pinch at the end? Sometimes necessary. But if that pinch is doing the heavy lifting, you were absent during the cooking. Salt added to a finished plate sits on top. Salt added with intention becomes the food.