Believe What You Will, I Still Say Planking Is a Gimmick

It is the Western Redcedar, Thuja plicata , also known as the Giant Arborvitae, native to the Pacific Northwest, that the Chinook and other Indian tribes used for dugout canoes, totem poles, woven bark clothing and, presumably, cooking planks. It does not have the pungent, moth-repelling scent at all. Maybe that's why young Native American women didn't have hope chests. (Or maybe not.) Thus, the "cedar" the Indians used wasn't the wood we may think it was, and they used it not as a flavoring agent but only as a way of propping the fish up at the right distance from a hot fire.

The bottom line: Grilling or baking on a "cedar" plank is a gimmick. But if you insist on buying wooden boards from "gourmet" cookware suppliers at anywhere from 20 to 60 bucks a throw, your self-esteem will require that you taste "cedar's unique, spicy, citrus-y flavor" in whatever you cook on them.

And you will hear tom-toms.

In a recent column, you mentioned that plain old table salt is the standard of measurement in baking recipes. However, several chefs and cookbook authors specify kosher salt or sea salt. Do I use the same amounts of these kinds?

No, I'm afraid they all measure out differently. A few years ago, before the nation's chefs broke out in a rash of irrational exuberance about sea salts, a teaspoon of salt meant a teaspoon of the only salt in most people's kitchens: salt-shaker or table salt -- most often that familiar blue, cylindrical canister that Pours When It Rains. It is still the standard of measurement. (And by the way, that little girl with the umbrella is now 91 years old.) But kosher salt is deliberately manufactured in coarser grains, to work better in the koshering process. Because its bigger crystals don't pack down as well into the measuring spoon, a teaspoon of kosher salt contains less actual salt than a teaspoon of table salt.

How much less? Many writers quote a single conversion factor, without knowing that the two major brands of kosher salt have different crystal sizes and therefore measure differently. For Morton's Kosher Salt, use about 1 1/2 times the amount stipulated in a recipe. For Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, use twice the stipulated amount. If a recipe specifies kosher salt without naming the brand, just turn your back to the stove and throw some over your shoulder. After all, seasoning should be adjusted to your taste in the final stages of cooking, and the amount of salt specified in a recipe is often just a suggestion.

What about measuring sea salts? Forget about it. Using them in cooking is pure foolishness, because their sole distinction is the size and shape of their crystals, and these disappear the moment they dissolve in the food. Sea salts are for sprinkling ad lib onto a finished dish to deliver crunch and bursts of flavor.

Robert L. Wolke (http://www.robertwolke.com) is professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. His latest book is "What Einstein Told His Cook 2, the Sequel: Further Adventures in Kitchen Science" (W.W. Norton, 2005). He can be reached atwolke@pitt.edu.