— Judith Trusdell

uh, the brining brining, uh, of fish, and this, this goes for pre seasoning in general. Uh, and this is, uh, true for beef. This is true for, uh, some vegetables. This is true for seafood in general. But what salt can do is it desiccates by drawing moisture to it, but it also through osmosis, uh, goes into the cellular structure of whatever you have seasoned. And by doing so, salt also strengthens the cell walls of proteins. And what that leads to is greater moisture retention, but also just generally a little bit better structural integrity. Those, those proteins just kind of stick together a little bit better. Uh, the flake of a brined piece of seafood versus an unbred seafood piece of seafood is, is just a little bit less delicate. That's not to say it's any, any, you know, lost on the palate because all of that moisture is there. But if you're doing something on the grill where there's a real danger of feeding the fire and not your family, especially with very delicate pieces of seafood, it makes sense to give it just a little bit of help in maintaining that integrity. If you're, if you're sauteing something on the stove top, yeah, your piece of flounder or your cod might very well fall apart. And brining or pre seasoning can certainly help that. But also, okay, too bad the fish fell apart. Guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna take my spatula and kind of flake out the rest of it, and then I'm gonna pour it on a plate and put the sauce over top and say, I meant to do that. Doesn't it look great? Right? I I there's not a whole lot of danger on the stove top, whereas with the fire, if the cod flakes apart and falls into the fire, there's no recovery of it, right? I mean, you've literally spent your money to burn your cod. Uh, so that's the point of it is really that structural integrity, but also that moisture retention, it gives you a little bit more leeway in terms of cooking times. Also, the ferocity of heat on grill can be higher, uh, if you're not paying attention than what you're used to maybe on the stove top. So it gives you that little bit of leeway, uh, for that moisture retention and getting the product you want outta it.