Restaurant Salt Ban Is Purely a New York Thing

By Staff in Food on Mar 20, 2010 5:45PM

Not that the City Council doesn’t have better things to do than copycat a salt ban like the one being discussed in New York. But the Tribune’s Mary Schmich was concerned enough to dedicate a recent column to the seemingly impossible-to-believe concept that we might follow the lead of a Brooklyn assemblyman who is trying to eliminate salt from New York restaurants. Sayeth Schmich:

So we shouldn't be surprised if, one day soon, some Chicago alderman is inspired to copy the Brooklyn assemblyman who just proposed a law forbidding New York restaurants from preparing foods with salt.

It's one thing to eliminate foie gras---but dumping salt from Chicago restaurants seems completely out of the realm of the possible. Why, if that ban extended to celery salt, it could mark the death knell for our beloved Chicago hot dogs. (First they came for the celery salt, and then they came for our insanely nuclear green pickle relish…) Ina Pinkney; our town’s restaurant recycling leader and self-described “breakfast queen” declared the salt silliness, “Unenforceable.”

However, there's been no discussion of the idea outside Schmich's column. Cooler heads tend to prevail in the Windy City. And truth be told, New York was actually following our lead with the ill-advised trans-fat ban in 2006 (we thought better of the idea). But it would be fun to see Chicago’s foodies’ reaction this sort of salt-silliness. Would we see illegal salt dogs pop up at Hot Doug’s? Late night salt-easies? How would you work your way around a ban?

Post by: Josh Mogerman