Anonymous wrote:never heard that anecdote, but I love it. My FIL does this. I am a good cook and I go out of my way to make really nice meals when they visit, and he'll take salt to a perfectly seasoned beef tenderloin ($100 piece of meat) with port wine reduction without even tasting it first. GRRR.
Perfectly seasoned to your taste. My family prefers low sodium. I've had foods prepared by excellent professional chefs and ones from excellent amateur chefs from top chef's recipes that are seasoned well to other people's taste, but not to mine. I find that most professional chefs like their food far saltier than I like mine. When I cook recipes, if the salt is not a leavener, I halve the salt in the recipe (or less).
Many of my friends know my cooking style is much lower on salt and will salt my food, sometimes before tasting. Doesn't bother me. Seasoned to my taste, not to theirs and they like their salt. Why someone would take offense that someone else's sense of taste differed from theirs I have never understood. It's not about your cooking. It's about their preference for salt. If they know beforehand that you salt your cooking less than they prefer, why wouldn't they add salt and then taste?