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Kosher salt, unlike table salt, has qualities that make it very cook-friendly. The main ones being:

A) Kosher salt is easier to handle than table salt. The large, course grains lend themselves to finger-pinching and sprinkling. You can grab a good amount with a three finger pinch and toss it around as needed, as where table salt seems like powder in comparison.

B) Kosher salt is less salty than table salt. Therefore, you have more room for error. And correcting the seasoning on a dish you've oversalted is very difficult.

C) Kosher salt is large enough to be somewhat visible, so you can use it for seasoning and garnishing purposes simultaneously.

Tastes better.

You can rim a glass with it like nobody's business.

@WSLunch - why do you use one in the restaurant and one at home?

Kosher salt is more coarse. And to clear up any confusion - it's not that table salts can't be kosher, kosher salt is used for preparing meat to be kosher.

Hillary
Chew on That

I love the feeling of it when I scoop some up to salt my pasta water.

As others have said in slightly different way, the term "kosher salt" has in recent years come to be used simply as a synonym for "medium-coarse, relatively pure salt." The large, economical boxes of salt commonly found in supermarket shelves next to the finely ground (for example, the Morton brand in the iconic cylindrical box) iodized table salt are typically, though not always, labeled "kosher salt." Some may be labeled "coarse salt" (non-iodized) and is for all purposes equivalent to those labeled "kosher salt." I have also seen boxes of salt that's even coarser than "kosher salt," intended for use in home ice cream churns.

And yes, essentially all salt is kosher. The original meaning of "kosher salt" was to indicate salt intended for preparing foods in a kosher way, or "kashering" as it's sometimes called. But I'd have to guess that the vast majority of purchasers of "kosher salt" today simply buy it because it's a relatively economical kind of medium-coarse salt - - cheaper than fancy sea salt by far, perhaps slightly less coarse than some sea salts, and without any perceptible flavors, such as sulfury tastes/smells, or unusual colors/tints, that some exotic sea salts have.

And yes, it's non-iodized, but so is coarse sea salt. Iodine, like other dissolved elements in seawater, are present in small amounts, but not as much as "iodized salt," that is, salt to which sodium iodide has been added as a nutritional supplement. (In the days before iodized salt, and when people's diets were more limited, thyroid problems were common.)

In sum, I have to believe that when a recipe calls for "kosher salt," it is just calling for medium-coarse, flavor-neutral salt, for which one could substitute myriads kinds of coarse salt, including sea salts. But the big box labeled "kosher salt" is often the best buy and guaranteed not to have esoteric flavors, so cooks simply call for "kosher salt" in recipes and let those who follow the recipe decide for themselves whether to substitute a more distinctive salt.

Kosher salt and table salt (non-iodized) are chemically identical, so weight-for-weight, neither one is saltier than the other. When dissolved into liquids or in sauces, they are also completely indistinguishable from each other in terms of flavor. Eaten out of hand, slight flavor differences can be detected, but the reason is psychosomatic. Texture and flavor are very difficult for us to qualify independently of each other.

Many cooks (myself included) prefer to use kosher salt because it is much easier to measure out with your fingers. Table salt (which is not just ground salt, but salt that is formed into tiny cube-shaped crystals) sticks to your fingers, and is too small to pick up in a repeatable, and satisfying way. With the coarser grains of kosher salt, you know exactly how much you're picking up, and it's much easier to sprinkle over food evenly.

Finally, all salt is technically Kosher. Kosher salt should more appropriately be labeled "Koshering salt," because it is designed to draw blood and juices out from inside cuts of meat, a key step in the koshering process. Sprinkling it on meat causes juices to come out through both osmotic pressure and capillary action. You need coarse grains for this. If you were to try and use regular table salt, the small grains would dissolve in the extracted liquid and run off the meat.

Kosher salt is not "less salty" than other salts. That is ridiculous. The grains are flake in texture and they cover more surface area, in less of an amount of salt by weight. When a recipe calls for a volumetric measurement of "Kosher" Salt, one should follow that request if nothing more than ensuring that you don't over or under season the recipe. Since is has larger grains, one tablespoon of kosher salt is less densely packed than one tablespoon of granular iodized, sea or whatever is smaller. Hence, there is more, by weight and density, of salt in a tablespoon of iodized or granular salt, than in the flakes of kosher or any other flake. It's science people, not rocket science.

I love the feeling of kosher salt in my hand (three fingers, to be exact). The little bitty table salt never feels quite right. I also prefer the flavor of kosher salt. Not sure if it's exactly the flaver but the effect kosher salt has on food. I started using it years ago and never looked back.

The whole gray salt/sea salt thing never made any sense to me. I imagine there are subtle differences between salts but kosher pretty much covers all the bases for me.

@nalega, the restaurant makes fresh cut fries, and its great on that and like mentioned its less forgiving when salting the sauteed food on the menu, everything is made to order. At home I use the Sea Salt because my mom travels to Portual to ride out the winter and always brings me a year supply of Fleur De Sal its great!

So I guess neither kosher nor sea salt are any better with regard to adverse affect on blood pressure.

Koshering salt definitely has its pluses: easy to measure by hand and better in searing. For those of you who thinks kosher salt tastes better than table salt, what are you doing with it? Eating it straight up? I can guarantee you cannot taste the difference between normal dishes seasoned using one or the other, it's all psychological.