[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

“Agnus Day with gnocchi and some zucchini. Easter is this Sunday.”
– Gregorian Chant (alternate)

I don’t use direct salt when I cook stir fries because I let soy sauce lull me into complacent bliss by hiding its sodium content in that little white square on the back of the bottle, filled with numbers and uninteresting acronyms, that nobody ever reads. According to Waverley Root, tarragon does the same thing but with no scolding square to ignore. He goes further. From his book, Food: An Authoritative, Visual History and Dictionary of the Foods of the World:

“In the less than a thousand years that it has been known to Westerners, food writers have extolled [tarragon] for its ability to replace salt, pepper, and vinegar. (It can also replace garlic for those for those allergic to this food.)”

This was news to me, although since reading I’ve found numerous dietary web sites that make the same claim. I can see the peppery and maybe some of the brightening of flavor you get from vinegar or other acids. That brightening may be what he means when he says tarragon replaces salt, but I have to concentrate to find it. It is there on the tongue, but as a shadow.