Why – and When – Salty Treats Became the Sweetest Thing

I grew up in a salt-deprived household. It was the early ’90s and my parents were obsessed with lowering their cholesterol. Back then, removing salt from your diet was like going no-carb today. I believed in neither, so would dip my fries into sundaes after school and marvel at the electricity on my tongue whenever friends’ parents fed me salt-enhanced dinners during sleepovers. Although my mum is a wonderful cook and our family always gathered at the table, there was always one thing missing: salt.

Any home chef or reality cooking show fan knows that salt enhances flavour. Salt-enhanced sweetness is, quite literally, science. Humans have receptors in our gut called sodium-glucose cotransporters that are responsible for most of our glucose uptake into the intestine – but only when sodium is also present. Translation: some sweet flavours are only perceived when salt is present.

My earliest memory of this phenomenon – call it a case study – is when my mother splurged on French butter and hid it behind a cacophony of condiments in the fridge so my father wouldn’t use it on something basic. Cold enough to be sliced, we’d feel the crunch of salt crystals yield beneath the knife as we shaved off thin curls, letting each one slowly melt on our tongues. There’s no added sugar in natural butter, yet it tasted sweet.

What I was too young to realise at the time was that decadent French butter provides the perfect example of how salt balances richness and fats. That’s why, as someone who generally craves savoury over sweet, I’ll often sprinkle salt on dessert, much to the horror of whoever I’m dining with.

The reality is you’ll find salt in most sweet treats, whether it’s obvious or not. In my hometown of Melbourne there’s Supernormal’s famed peanut-butter parfait that can’t be canned from the menu for fear of public backlash, and Nordic newcomer Freyja’s take on the Italian Mont Blanc dessert, where cream-filled choux pastry squiggled with chestnut cream is bolstered by salty kelp oil. And consumer demand sees salty treats continue to grace freezer aisles, as with Connoisseur’s new Salted Pretzel ice-cream, which features caramel- and vanilla-flavoured ice-cream with Murray River salted caramel syrup, baked cookie crumbs and salted pretzel chunks beneath a crisp, sweet chocolate shell.

None of this is news to avid bakers, who also understand the practical use of salt in cooking. It’s an anti-caking agent that prevents lumps, as well as an emulsifier, which binds and stabilises food. It activates yeast, can influence the colour of pastry and improves texture. While Australians’ understanding of salty-sweet foods has been somewhat limited to professional chefs and bakers – up until the salted caramel phenomenon of a decade ago – it’s long been commonplace in other cultures.

Salt is used the world over on sugary, refreshing foods to balance tart and bitter flavours. In Mexico, vibrant street stalls fill cups with tropical fruit and add a storm of Tajin (chilli, lime and sea salt powder) and chamoy (a sweet, salty and spicy dehydrated fruit condiment). Green mango is dipped in chilli salt all over Asia. For breakfast in the Philippines, you might try champorado with tuyo (chocolate porridge served with dried, salted fish).

Chefs will tell you that salt heightens sweet flavours and sugar rounds out savoury ones. But for the rest of us, it’s as simple as the saying “Variety is the spice of life”. If nothing else, the combination of sugar and salt enhances cravings for both and keeps our appetites inspired. Once upon a time, it might have helped us survive. Today, it helps us indulge – and there’s little sweeter than that.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Connoisseur Gourmet Ice Cream’s new Salted Pretzel ice-cream, part of its new Laneway Sweets range available now.