Ya Salty Sea Dog!

What's the deal with salting the water before you boil pasta?

I will defer to Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, food columnist for the Washington Post and author of the book "What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained."

There is a very simple reason for adding the salt: It boosts the flavor of the food, just as it does when used in any other kind of cooking. And that's all there is to it.
At this point every reader who has ever paid the slightest attention in chemistry class will object. "But adding salt to the water raises its boiling point, so the water will boil hotter and cook the food faster."
To these readers I award an A in chemistry but a D in Food 101. It's true that dissolving salt - or really anything else, for that matter - in water will indeed make it boil at a higher temperature. But in cooking the rise is nowhere near enough to make any difference... Adding a table spoon (20 grams) of table salt to 5 quarts of boiling water will raise the boiling point by seven hundredths of one degree F. That might shorten the cooking time by half a second or so. Anyone who is in that much of a hurry may also want to consider rollerblading it from the kitchen to the dining room.

There you have it. My buddy Mario Batali once said, "good Italian pasta should taste like it was cooked in the sea." So salt accordingly. A note on "What Einstein Told His Cook", it's actually quite fantastic, and I would highly recommend it. Kitchen chemistry explained, in layman's terms. Maybe its just me who loves reading that type of thing but hey, that's just who I am.