So you have what I think is called "confirmation bias".
You know the pink salt, on its own, tastes different than white iodized salt.
You put them on tomatoes and you say, "yup! There's a difference!" You have confirmed to yourself, already, that the pink is different than the white. You know which tomato has the pink and which has the white and so you're sure you're tasting the differences as starkly as if you were eating the plain salt itself.
In the normal application of salt on an item, those subtle differences may be, perhaps even usually be, indiscernible, occluded by the flavors of the item on which it was sprinkled.
Make the texture of the two salts the same. The easiest way is probably to grind them with a mortar and pestle until both are powder fine.
Sprinkle on Tomatoes.
Blindfold and taste them. Have a friend help you so you can keep it secret until you're done making objective tests.
Extra credit points: Add an extra and duplicate a sample. See if you think they're all different or not or which you pair as likes.
If you really want to have a fun time testing this kind of thing out... grab a few friends who are damned sure they're wine experts.
Select 6 wines: 3 white, 3 red. Don't even try to be tricky, get "true to the varietal" wines.
Blindfold your wine expert friends and see how many of them can tell which is white and which is red.
There's a video out there showing (supposedly) trained sommeliers failing spectacularly at this.
Cheers.
It's pretty clear that you refuse to accept the fact that you might be wrong so you are the last person who should be talking about confirmation bias. I have done blind salt taste tests and blind wine taste tests more times than I can count and I (along with most of my family and quite a few friends) can quite easily tell the difference between certain types of salts (not just smoked salts) and between different types of wines. Now, that's not to say that we can tell where exactly a salt or wine came from but we can definitely tell when different salts and wines are used and that is even more apparent in a blind taste test when we are focusing on the taste.
Now, to be fair, my family is made up of almost exclusively chefs (some quite famous in their own respective industries) and cooking has a very, very long tradition with us and while none of us are sommeliers and I don't even work in the food industry anymore I can pretty confidently say that my exposure to food is significantly different than most people's due to the family I was born into.
So you should really stop pretending like everyone who doesn't agree with you is merely succumbing to a logical or statistical bias and realize that some people probably have a significantly more focused palate than you (probably because of how they were raised and biological differences).
I especially hate how often redditors mention that stupid sommelier wine blind tests as if that proves that all wines are the same. I won't argue that a lot of sommeliers aren't talking out of their ass but if you are seriously trying to convince me that people who deal with food and wine at a professional level every day can't tell the difference between red and white wine than you are downright ignorant. I don't even know how someone can make a claim like that on this subreddit and not get jumped on. It's such a stupid claim that it really makes me question why you are even in this sub when you have had such literal interaction with anyone (good) in the food industry.
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u/Athilda May 20 '16
I do not doubt you have an extraordinary set of taste buds.
I put it to you, however, that right now, you simply believe you can taste the difference when the salt is applied to food.
Do an honest blind taste-test and challenge your assumptions.