Any meat but seafood should be salted well in advance of cooking it, up to several days in advance, in some cases. Experiment: The next time you plan to cook chicken, beef, or pork, salt half of it 24 hours before you cook it, and the other half just before cooking. Make sure you know which is which, then taste the end result; present a blind taste test to your diners and see if they can figure out why one piece tastes better than the other one.

The extra time gives the salt a chance to penetrate the meat, flavoring it throughout. You'll become a convert...

And keep in mind that salt penetrates faster at warmer temperatures, so even salting an hour in advance while your meat rests on the counter coming up to room temperature is better than not salting in advance at all.