Definitions of the Best

[Schielke]

Many of your articles are an exercise in defining 'the best' way to do something or the like. Since publishing, have any of these 'best' definitions changed?

Ben

[Jeffrey Steingarten]

Hi Ben,

What a challenging question. There are two senses in which "the best" applies. One is in defining the characteristics of the absolute best peach, fried chicken, salami, etc. I don't think I've changed much in this area. It sounds odd when I say that, but I don't think it's a sign of inflexibility. I asked Ducasse why he was serving steak that had been dry aged for only three weeks, and he told me that it was a tradeoff between juiciness and flavor. This is true. And so I started tasting grass-fed short-aged beef with new appreciation--but not in an ultimate sense.

As for the best methods, I'm sure I've changed my favorite methods quite a lot.

Do you think I should issue a volume of errata on my entire life?

Jeffrey

[Schielke]

No book is necessary unless the change is compelling enough to warrant it. Thank you for the answer, I was interested in roughly how dynamic your findings are.

Ben

[Wolfert]

Jeffrey: I like your answer. But I'm wondering if our pursuit of "the best" (and in my recipe research, I am very much such a pursuer) can be harmful in that it can drive out the merely "good", at least in the public mind. For example, I love the notion of a "good" neighborhood bistro -- not the "best" bistro in town, but a good one where the welcome is warm, the food is good and there's never a problem getting a reservation. I also love the notion of a "good" recipe for beef cooked in wine -- not the very "best" recipe, such as the complex one in my "World Of Food" that requires a couple of hard-to-find Spanish wines, but just a good solid recipe that always works and is easy to execute. As Voltaire put it: "The enemy of the good is the best." Any thoughts?

[russ parsons]

I agree, Paula. I think one thing that happens when we (speaking for all food writers, here) write those "ultimate" types of stories is that we leave the impression with our readers that a) there's no point in doing anything other than this, and b) that cooking well is so hard and exacting that it can only be done by lunatics like us who will go through a dozen tests. so, in a way, we are actually distancing people from cooking rather than involving them in it.

the answer, of course, is that it's hard to make a very enticing headline (or headnote) out of "a really good beef stew" as opposed to "the very best beef stew".

[John Whiting]

Jane Grigson put it succinctly: "We have more than enough masterpieces. What we need is a better sort of ordinariness."