Hi, question about Emiko Davies' panettoni, there's no salt; i'm used to adding a pinch of salt to all my baked goods, any idea why this recipe doesnt

Sure, flavors play off each other, but they don't always have to be the same ones; if you eat salt in everything you will miss it; it's by far the easiest flavor to detect and quantify, but it's a conditioned reaction to think that it SHOULD be there. You could, for example, put Ancho chile powder in everything you cook; it's hard to imagine anything it would ruin, it would deepen the flavor of most dishes, help catch your attention etc., the same things that salt can do. Sometimes clarity is just better. You might decide to put salt (or Ancho chile, or black pepper....) in everything, but it should be a decision, not a dogma or knee jerk reaction.

I would have to disagree- in this day and age, baking something without salt represents a definite statement, and adding it will change the dish materially. It's unlikely to render it inedible, but if you do it, you should be conscious that you are not making the same thing. You see this a lot in comments on bread recipes- people will decide that the dough is too sticky and add some flour, or that it should be kneaded more, or that it needs salt- all of these things are central to the character of the product. Of course, it's always possible that it was an oversight in the recipe, but as a rule, it's best- out of respect for the writer, if nothing else- to try recipes unaltered first.

oldunc, care to explain why it is a bad habit? I was taught that some form of salt is essential to opening up flavors in both savory and sweet dishes. You do not taste it, but it makes a difference. Plus the other way it affects the chemistry of the dough in baked goods. Can you provide more details for your point of view?

My point of view is that the indiscriminate adding of ingredients poorly serves both the science and the art of cooking. Nothing against the person who asked the question, but you should be able to see a recipe not including salt without thinking there is anything wrong with it. Salt actually has little effect on baked goods other than to make them taste salty; theories that it somehow controls yeast just don't bear up to trial. Short of an extended essay on the mechanisms of evolution in modern man and the influence of commercial propaganda on peoples' thought processes it would be difficult to analyze the massive overreliance on fats, sugars and salts in the modern diet of developed countries; I will leave it that the indiscriminate addition of salt to dishes that really don't need- and it's overuse in others- is pervasive, pernicious and self perpetuating.