If nobody's perfect, as the old saying goes, how is it that there's so much perfect food?
Plug "perfect burger" into a Google search and you'll find numerous sets of directions to achieve the ideal, courtesy of sources as varied as the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, ehow.com and Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl's husband. Foodnetwork.com has pages of recipes with "perfect" in the title. (That's not counting all the dishes labeled "world's best" or "best ever," let alone all the "ultimate" offerings from Food Network chef Tyler Florence.)
Of course this only adds to the pressure hosts feel on holidays such as this Memorial Day weekend, the start of the summer entertaining season. What if we don't offer the perfect menu? And what is that, anyway?
"The explosion of food blogging has really exacerbated the pandemic of perfect," says David Kamp, whose recent book, The United States of Arugula, examined the evolution of America's obsessive interest in food.
"It's a lot like someone talking about the mechanics of a baseball pitcher," Kamp says. "It's partly charming and endearing and partly bonkers."
Shall we blame that doyenne of the domestic ideal, Martha Stewart? A search of her Web site yields 27 recipes that claim perfection, from Perfect Roast Turkey (brine it first) to Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (with Emmentaler Swiss cheese and ciabatta) to Perfect Pie Crust (all butter). Playing recently on marthastewart.com: video of Stewart showing country singer Patty Loveless how to make Perfect French Toast.
Though she has, no doubt, spread perfection fever, Stewart is not the only one responsible - because it turns out that the cult of the culinary superlative has been active longer than I had thought.
How else to explain something called Perfection Salad, a molded melange of vegetables bound with aspic that dates to the early 1900s? It was cooking-school perfect, Laura Shapiro says in Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, not because it was particularly delicious - that was beside the point - but because the gelatin presented a tidy encasement for the ingredients within. Perfection Salad, Shapiro writes, was "the very image of a salad at last in control of itself."
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language doesn't necessarily clarify what's perfect, at least when it comes to food. Perfect is variously defined as "lacking nothing essential to the whole"; "being without defect or blemish"; "completely suited for a particular purpose or situation"; "excellent and delightful in all respects." How, though, to account for taste?
"The trouble is, what is perceived as perfection by one person may not be perfection by another," said Shirley Corriher, a food scientist and author of the classic book CookWise. "Some people love flat, crisp cookies. Other people love soft, puffy cookies. What I try to do in explaining science is to try to enable you to get your perfection."
With an exploding number of food personalities and thousands of recipes online, the promise of perfection is, however, a selling point - a way to stand out from the crowd. My e-mail, for example, brings news that the folks at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese think the perfect cheeseburger requires Boucher Blue Cheese from Green Mountain Blue Cheese Farm - in where else but Vermont - along with pickled red onion and garlic aioli.
Wondering what it all meant, I headed to the kitchen to build as perfect a Memorial Day menu as my skills could produce. Close at hand were several cookbooks that deal in perfection, including Cook the Perfect ... , a new offering from London chef Marcus Wareing, and 1998's The Perfect Recipe by Pam Anderson, former executive editor of the perfection-obsessed Cook's Illustrated magazine.
I started with the burger, the main event at many a Memorial Day feast. Many of the "perfect burger" authorities seemed to agree that ground chuck makes the perfect foundation - and the more recently ground, the better. I stopped short of grinding my own, but did ask the butcher to freshly pulverize a chuck roast for me to grill as soon as I got home.
In his new primer What's a Cook to Do?, which offers instructions for "the world's best hamburger," veteran author James Peterson cautions not to spoil this good meat with "indifferent cheese." I heeded this warning and took his suggestion to "experiment" (can experiments be guaranteed to produce the world's best?) with a fine Roquefort.
My husband, the grill master in our house, followed Anderson's direction to grate the cheese into the patties instead of melting it on top. But he didn't grate it into his patty. When I asked why, I learned something new after nearly eight years of marriage - that his perfect burger does not include any kind of cheese.
I found surprisingly little guidance on the perfect bun for the perfect burger. The Gourmet Cookbook has a "perfect" recipe it says may persuade you never to buy hamburger buns again, but I was not going there; I was relieved to find dispensation to purchase kaiser rolls.
Anderson's grilling instructions did produce a delicious, juicy burger, and Peterson's Roquefort, properly dispersed, enhanced rather than stole the show. The rolls had just the right amount of give.
Then I turned to potato salad, another perennial Memorial Day offering. Dishes beginning with "p" seem more apt to be perfect, perhaps because they offer the bonus of alliteration.
The Perfect Potato Salad from perfectentertaining.com calls for plenty of mayonnaise and sour cream - and it is perfect for folks who like their potatoes very creamy, with a bit of crunch from celery.
I enjoyed it, but even after applying a few tweaks I wasn't sure it was perfect for me; I wanted more mustard and a stronger herbal presence. (In The Perfect Recipe, Anderson hedges her bets with directions for French-Style Potato Salad With Tarragon Vinaigrette, German-Style Potato Salad With Bacon and Balsamic Vinegar, and American-Style Potato Salad With Eggs and Sweet Pickles.)
I thought cheesecake, with its propensity to crack, would be a good candidate for a perfection test. In something of a transcontinental throwdown, British chef Wareing includes a New York Cheesecake in his book. That was the recipe I tried first. Wareing had this key to perfection: Relentlessly weed out air bubbles on the surface with your fingertip just before you bake the cheesecake slowly in a low oven.
The cheesecake was beautiful, but when it emerged, a couple of small bubbles had reached the surface and popped nonetheless. I tried to think of them as beauty marks, like Cindy Crawford's mole. That didn't work so well, and it didn't help that the cheesecake, while delicious, was a little too runny.
I decided to marry Wareing's surface-smoothing technique with Anderson's recipe for rich, creamy cheesecake, which is baked in a water bath and left in the oven with the door open for an hour after baking. Anderson's recipe also called for double the amount of cream cheese. I did not expect a perfect fat-gram count.
The result was the closest I got to my own idea of perfection - an unbroken surface, a sturdy yet velvety texture and the tang of the cheesecakes I'd consumed in New York. But striving for the ideal had left me exhausted, and I looked forward to cooking merely for sustenance and fun. I have resolved from now on to adopt Aristotle's credo: "Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
kate.shatzkin@baltsun.com
The 'Perfect' Burger
Makes 4 burgers
1 1/4 pounds 100 percent ground chuck (see note)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 cup Roquefort cheese
4 kaiser rolls, lightly toasted or grilled
sliced tomato and red onion for garnish
Place ground chuck in a large bowl and break up with fingers to increase surface area of seasoning. Sprinkle salt and pepper over meat, then grate in cheese and toss lightly with hands to distribute. Divide meat into 4 equal portions (5 ounces each).
With cupped hands, toss portion of meat back and forth to form a loose ball. Pat lightly to flatten to a 1-inch-thick burger, 3 1/2 to 4 inches across, using your fingertips to create a pocked, textured surface. Repeat with remaining meat.
Heat enough coals to make a hot fire (at least 5 pounds). When coals are hot and covered with white ash, spread the pile evenly over half of a standard charcoal grill. Replace grill rack and lid; heat until grill rack is hot, about 5 minutes.
Place burgers on grill rack over hot coals, cover and grill on one side 4 minutes for medium-rare. Turn and grill 4 minutes on the other side. Serve with rolls, garnishes and ketchup and mustard.
Note: If you are buying chuck roast to be freshly ground by the butcher, purchase 1 1/2 pounds to account for the small amount of meat that will be lost to the grinder.
Adapted from "The Perfect Recipe" by Pam Anderson and "What's a Cook to Do?" by James Peterson
Per serving: 565 calories, 48 grams protein, 27 grams fat, 11 grams saturated fat, 31 grams carbohydrate, 1 gram fiber, 123 milligrams cholesterol, 1,360 milligrams sodium
The 'Perfect' Potato Salad
Serves 8
4 pounds baby red potatoes, cut into large chunks
3/4 cup low-fat mayonnaise
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup low-fat sour cream
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
dash of honey ( 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon)
1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/3 cup snipped chives
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 sliced hard-boiled eggs
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
Cook the potatoes in a large pot of salted boiling water until tender, but still firm and not mushy, about 10 to 12 minutes. Drain well and cool to room temperature.
In a large bowl, mix together the mayonnaises, sour cream, yogurt, vinegar, mustard, honey, parsley, chives, salt and pepper. Add the potatoes, eggs, onion and celery and toss to combine with the dressing. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Adapted from perfectentertaining.com
Per serving: 298 calories, 10 grams protein, 13 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat, 35 grams carbohydrate, 4 grams fiber, 111 milligrams cholesterol, 339 milligrams sodium
The 'Perfect' Cheesecake
Serves 12 to 16
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup graham-cracker crumbs
2 pounds regular cream cheese
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon zest from 1 small lemon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place foil over bottom disc of a 9-inch springform pan, tucking excess underneath disc; assemble pan. Pull up foil around the outside of the pan. Brush interior with butter.
Sprinkle graham-cracker crumbs into pan, tilting it in all directions to coat evenly with crumbs. Cover exterior of pan with a sheet of heavy-duty foil and set in a large roasting pan. Bring a kettle of water to a boil for water bath.
Meanwhile, beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add sugar and beat on medium speed until it is fully incorporated, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down bowl after each addition. (If you don't scrape down bowl after each egg, any cream cheese sticking to sides will make batter lumpy.) Add zest and vanilla and beat until just incorporated. Stir in cream and sour cream by hand.
Pour batter into the springform pan. Once the filling is level in the pan, smooth over the top with your fingertip to remove any air bubbles. Set the roasting pan on the oven rack, set the springform pan in it, and pour in enough boiling water to come about halfway up the side of the springform pan.
Bake until perimeter of cake is set but center jiggles when the pan is tapped, 55 to 60 minutes. Turn off heat and leave oven door ajar for 1 hour. Remove springform pan from water bath and set on a wire rack. Cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, at least 4 hours. Cheesecake can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.
Adapted from "The Perfect Recipe" by Pam Anderson and "Cook the Perfect ... " by Marcus Wareing
Per serving (based on 16 servings): 328 calories, 6 grams protein, 25 grams fat, 15 grams saturated fat, 21 grams carbohydrate, 0 grams fiber, 126 milligrams cholesterol, 213 milligrams sodium