Can salt make sour fruit seem sweeter?
I got a little debate started via the comments on this answer. The poster suggests the use of salt to make a sour kiwifruit-sauce taste sweeter in the same way you would use salt to make something taste less bitter.
I was interested to see if this would really work, so I did a simple experiment. I'll repeat the details from the comment,
Salt will only make fruit taste sweeter if it is already sweet. Here's an experiment I tried with two glasses of dilute lime juice. I added enough sugar so that the mixture was just a little too sour. I added a very small amount of salt to one glass, stirred until disolved and tasted. The glass containing salt was noticeably more sour. [...]
And the poster's reply to this,
Kiwifruit typically has more sugar content than grapefruit, which is typically 'made sweeter' with a touch of salt. It is certainly much sweeter than lime juice; kiwifruit averages over 8 grams of sugar where the same amount of lime juice (as in your example) averages just over 1.5 grams.
My assumption has been that salt acts as a flavour enhancer and so will accentuate whatever taste is predominant (unless the taste is bitter). My little experiment bears me out, but one experiment is hardly conclusive as any number of things can go wrong. In any case, I'm willing to believe that things are more complex than I have assumed.
Does salt help sour fruit taste sweeter?
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It seems at the least plausible, on two fronts.
If I'm reading http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/291/6/G1005.full correctly, saltiness and sourness can cancel each other out to some extent.
Salt can increase perceived sweetness: T1r3 taste cells have sodium-glucose co-transporters which may provide the explanation.
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In particular, salt seems to decrease our perception of acidity. It is acidity that is responsible for a sour or tart flavor. Imagine a tart piece of fruit, such as an apple. You sprinkle a bit of salt on a slice of apple, and the tart apple tastes much sweeter.Does salt make fruit sweeter?
The key is a sugar-ferrying protein in taste cells. It's one of life's little ironies: Sweet foods get sweeter when you add a little salt. Now, scientists may have provided connoisseurs of salted caramel and grapefruit with the reason this culinary trick is worth its salt.Does salt reduce sourness?
Salt is used as a universal flavour improver because at low concentrations it will reduce bitterness, but increase sweet, sour and umami, which is desirable for sweet recipes. But at higher concentrations it suppresses sweetness and enhances umami, which is good for savoury things.Does salt Make lemon sweet?
Salt will only make fruit taste sweeter if it is already sweet. Here's an experiment I tried with two glasses of dilute lime juice. I added enough sugar so that the mixture was just a little too sour. I added a very small amount of salt to one glass, stirred until disolved and tasted.How do you make fruit less sour?
Macerating\u2014soaking or steeping in liquid and/or sweetener\u2014is one of the easiest and fastest ways to doctor up sub-par berries. Toss them in sugar, honey, or maple syrup, along with a little fresh juice or alcohol (an herbal liqueur, like elderflower spirit, would be great).Why do people salt watermelon?
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