President-elect Barack Obama likes salt ... on caramel, at least. So reports the NY Times in a December 31 story "How Caramel Developed a Taste For Salt ." Food technologists readily understand how salt makes sweet sweeter by masking bitterness, but the traditional Breton confection of heavily-salted butter caramels has now "made its successful run from rarefied Parisian pastry shops to American big-box stores in a decade -- a relatively short period, according to people who study food trends.