Actually folks, the "potato and Salt" story is more of an "Old Wives Tale" than anything else..
Lets say that you are preparing a beef stew that calls for ... ohhh ... say 4 or 5 potatoes cut into 1" cubes.
Then for whatever the reason, you accidentally dump in twice as much salt as the recipe calls for in the mixture..
To reduce the salt taste in the stew, you would have to dump out all of the liquid already in the pot and add several POUNDS of potatoes to even make a dent in lessening the salty taste..
and think about this....
once you have mixed in the extra cubed or chopped up potatoes to "Soak Up" the extra salt...
how do you tell which potatoes are the ones with the extra salt in them ??
That means that your "Beef Stew" has now become a "Potato" stew with a little bit of beef added to it..
Then there are dishes like......
casseroles,
breads,
hamburgers,
meatloaf,
stroganoff,
tuna fish salads,
macaroni salads,
salad dressings, ..... etc.. etc...
If you dump too much salt into the flour mixture when preparing the dough for making home made bread or dinner rolls...
how many potatoes do you use and how do the chopped up potatoes soak up the salt from the flour and shortening mixture ?
Or let's say you are making home made hamburger patties or maybe a meatloaf and accidentally add too much salt to the meat...
How do you go about removing the excess salt with chopped up potatoes ?
heh heh heh heh .... yeh, I know... I'm a smart*ss..
but trust me on this one folks... after almost thirty years in the restaurant business,, I have learned that if you put too much salt into almost any food .. it's not going to come back out...
About the only dish where the old "Potato and Salt" tale may have even a remote chance of working... is Potato soup ...
and if that happens , you better plan on making lots and lots and lots of soup, because it's going to take that many potatoes to do the trick..
Best Wishes,
John