You know how sometimes people in questionable restaurants will order something commonplace and say, “Well, how bad can you screw that up?” I learned the answer to that rhetorical question when I was in cooking school. The answer is: really bad. You can always screw something up really, really bad.
I was reminded of this the other week, while I was thinking about an unfortunate plate of cheese ramyun in a now-defunct restaurant. I recognized that cheese. I knew that cheese.
I was making hamburgers for friends one night, waltzing down to the grocery store for some Kraft Singles, only to find myself shocked at how expensive they were. I mean, I love American cheese, but at $6 a pound? I couldn’t deal with the idea that it costs as much as real cheese. I am not a great maker of hamburgers, and if I’m going to drop six bucks on the cheese, I’d rather just take my friends over to Donovan’s and buy them a great burger.
I was considering my options when I noticed, a few inches behind the Kraft Singles, a pack of Tropical brand cheese, covered with jaunty lettering and a clip-art palm tree. Tropical brand cheese was cheap. It was butt cheap.
And so I thought, “How bad can shrink-wrapped American cheese be?” Plus I’m the kind of guy that likes to get behind the underdog. And I do have a theory that really fake food tastes better than mostly fake food: Witness the superiority of mac-n-instant-powdered-cheese (heavenly) over mac-n-Velveeta (In Hell, lost souls get drowned in Velveeta).
Back home, burgers seared up and well on their way to a nice medium rare, I unwrapped a couple slices, laid them on carefully, and put the pan in the oven. I toasted some buns, applied liberal quantities of mayonnaise. I took my burgers out and was about to bun them, but noticed the cheese wasn’t quite melted yet. I popped them back in and started wiping down my counter. A minute later, I was sticking my hand in the oven to make sure it was on. Then I was poking at my burgers to check on their doneness. Medium rare was a thing of the past.
I waited. I could live with a medium burger, but soon I was engaged in a battle of attrition. Who was going to break first, me or the Tropical brand cheese? Medium well. Well done. Hockey puck done. I finally gave up, pulling the things out just short of charcoal-lump doneness, the poor burgers all shrunken into tight little balls. And there, like a canopy over a gazebo, were the slices of Tropical brand cheese, their sharp edges still sticking out at perfect right angles. I think I detected a few beads of sweat on the surface, but no more. I had to admire its integrity, so much so that I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. I chipped off the slices and prepared to explain to my friends that I had played chicken with their dinner and lost. I know that cheese.
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