How much does tasting while you cook add up to?

Tasting while you cook is not the problem; the problem is how many times it is repeated. The difference between an amount taken onto a spoon once and an amount taken again and again at the pot is felt before the meal reaches the table. And “a spoonful” is not a fixed amount either; the spoons at home differ noticeably from one another.

Why does tasting never get counted?

Tasting is done standing, at the pot, and usually at the same time as something else. Nothing that happens without sitting down, without going onto a plate and without coming to the table gets recorded as a meal; so tasting is both eaten and uncounted.

The second reason is that the grounds for tasting are legitimate. Checking the salt is a genuinely necessary job, and because it is necessary it is not questioned; yet the number of repeats depends not on necessity but on the time spent standing at the pot.

The third is that its effect shows up in the meal itself. The tastes taken through the cooking may have reduced your appetite by the time you sit down; and food left on the plate then gets put down to the wrong cause.

How much is “a spoonful” really?

There is no fixed equivalent. TÜBER, Türkiye's national dietary guideline, records that the tablespoons produced in the country are not standard and that their volume has shrunk over time: the volume of a tablespoon has fallen from 15 mL to 10-12 mL compared with thirty-five to forty years ago.

The same section gives wide ranges for glasses and bowls too; tea glasses vary between 85-165 mL, water glasses between 200-560 mL, and bowls between 130-600 mL. The guideline's conclusion is clear: it is not possible to describe a portion correctly with tools that are not standard.

So describing a taste as “a spoonful” gives no measure. And a description that gives no measure does not limit the number of repeats; the only thing that limits it is dipping the spoon once.

Is there a way to bring tasting down to once?

The one that works best is using a separate spoon for tasting and putting it each time somewhere it will be washed. Putting the spoon down creates a small obstacle and takes the second taste out of being automatic.

The second is leaving the moment of tasting to the right point in the dish. Salt is largely adjusted after the liquid has reduced and the flavor has settled; tasting done early both misleads and invites repeating.

The third is shortening the time spent standing at the pot. Moving on to another job rather than standing in the kitchen while the food cooks quietly over a low heat directly lowers the number of tastes.

Is not tasting at all the answer?

It is not. Deciding on the salt without tasting the dish at all leads instead to the salt being too much or too little; and the correction made at the table usually ends in salt added on top.

There are two separate questions here: when the salt should be added, and how many times to taste. The first is a cooking decision, the second is about an amount that goes unnoticed; when the two are mixed up, an answer as useless as giving up tasting altogether comes out.

The right setup separates them: you taste for the salt decision, but once and with a spoon. This protects both the flavor of the dish and the whole of the meal.

What can you do today?

Put a separate small spoon beside the stove for tasting and drop it in the sink after every taste. That single rule makes the repeats noticeable.

And change the habit of standing at the pot while the food cooks. There is no need to wait beside a dish cooking over a low heat; set a timer and leave the kitchen. Leave the tasting to the end of the dish, to the moment when the salt is really being decided.