> Egads - try reading the actual recipe and noting that this salt is in
> a *brine*.

Not the way this recipe reads. That might be the intention but
nonetheless.... Keep that pork in there as long as the recipe suggests and
you'll have a dark salt block when you're through.

> While the old gentleman will likely get more salt than he
> should eating this recipe, it still won't be anywhere near 56,400mg.

Of course not -- I was not suggesting he would be consuming 56,400mg.

>>Salt serves no "necessary" purpose in a recipe other than flavoring. It
may
>>do other things, but nothing that cannot be worked around.
>
> Um, no. Salt also serves to set up the differences in osmotic
> pressure needed to make a brine work. That may or may not need to be
> worked around.

Um, yes. Salt serves no necessary purpose in a recipe other than flavoring.
Period. Salt's other values can be worked around with other techniques.

Brining is used to make meat more moist, juicy and tender. When muscle is
cooked its proteins tends to denature, making it drier and sometimes tough.
By brining it first, the meat will take up extra fluid and it takes quite a
bit more to get that extra moisture out. There's just one problem with
this -- that fluid contains large amounts of sodium and the meat doesn't
just soak up the water, it gets quite a bit of the sodium as well.

As for salt serving to "...set up the differences in osmotic pressure..."
that's a bit of a stretch. Osmosis involves the passing of fluid through a
semipermeable membrane. Salt causes certain proteins to denature then water
from the brine will bind with some of the protein's now broken bonds and
still more gets trapped between the proteins.

James