Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Curse of Thoroughly Cooked Cuisine

Does my thoroughly cooked food have to suffer the same fate?
It’s finally time for me to get this off of my ample yet well-proportioned chest. I have a bone to pick with cooks, chefs, sous chefs, culinary artists, hash slingers and anyone else who steps foot in a kitchen, wields a spatula like a Samurai sword and fawns over their own gastronomic creations. This has been weighing heavy on my mind for some time now. The catalyst for the timing of this particular tirade was a simple omelette. Unfortunately, this omelette was just plain ugly. In fact, it was so ugly it was fugly.  

So what is it that has my panties in a bunch? Well, far be it from me to complain about food. After all, I love the stuff. But why, in heaven’s name, whenever I request a food item to be prepared well done, the kitchen perceives this as code for “burn the hell out of it”?

I’m not a chef by trade (or even in my dreams, for that matter), but I am skilled enough in the kitchen to be able to fry an egg without making it look like some sort of omen signaling the beginning of the apocalypse.

And why, in the name of all that is just and pure, does the simple act of requesting that a piece of salmon be cooked through and through, ergo well done, spark angry tirades that result in a petrified hunk of fish on my plate? And do I even need to mention the well-done burger? Okay, so I’m not a beef eater and only eat turkey burgers, which have to be cooked through anyway, but if I were to eat a hamburger, I’m sure it would be presented to me as dry and desiccated as a lump of coal. Same thing goes for a steak.

Am I the only one who doesn’t see thoroughly cooking as being the equivalent of: a) dry, b) burnt, c) ugly (fugly, for those in the know), d) inedible, e) rock hard, f) scorched, g) shriveled, h) on the brink of disappearing in a puff of smoke or i) _______ (fill in the blank)? It’s okay…you can choose as many adjectives as you like.

Back to the minor catastrophe with my omelette of this morning. It was not a pretty sight. It was dried out. It lacked aesthetic appeal. It was damn near scary. And for what? All because I uttered the words “I’d like that cooked well done please.” I mean, hell, I said please.

It’s time for the well done lovers of the world to unite. Stand up and be accounted for. Get as mad as I am about this. Okay, I don’t plan to walk into restaurants and start flipping over tables like Godzilla. But I think my next move may be just as powerful. The next time I ask for something well done, I’ll add sweetly, “…and well done doesn’t mean burnt!” 

Yeah, that won’t make any friends in the kitchen, and my food will stand a fairly sizeable risk of being spat in, farted on or dropped to the floor and used as a mop. Maybe even all three.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just keep my big mouth shut. After all, what’s wrong with an omelette that can double as a Frisbee?

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