On That Perfect Meal: A Response to Bourdain's "Perfect"

           I remember when I would come home to my mother back in our apartment in Cicero. From what I recall, we lived on the second floor, with a Mexican family of five below us, or what I assume to be five, considering I never saw the three children’s’ father. Usually, when I would walk up the concrete steps into our red-bricked abode the smell of tortillas and tamales wafted up from the little exposed windows by the sidewalk, incurring a hunger so great in my four-year old stomach that it still grumbles to this day. The scent would drift and slither its way up from beneath my sneakers like shady snaky peddlers of saliva, begging with their tendrils to gather me down into a pit of peppers, chorizo, chicken, and salted beef. While my mother often gave me a wary eye whenever I would play with the trio—the three children who lived in the apartment below all being older than 4-year old me and whom she believed associated with gangs—I just wanted to know what they were cooking.

            While I never walked home from school, the drive always seemed long enough to make me hungry. When I was a kid, all places seemed “forever” away, treks and voyages with a goal incomprehensible save for the fact that when my mom kicked me out of our white Subaru sedan I knew I was in front of my pre-school. It is as if I were an infantile intrepid Columbus about to hit the edge of the world, and bam—there are the West Indies. Naturally all this travelling stirred quite a hunger.

            So, after a long day of exploring and block building, I would stumble into my home a little after noon—passing by those salty, red meat sizzle smells on my way in—and desire a heaping serving of lunch.

Bringing it all back, hang in there, this isn’t all too off-topic.

I am spoiled enough to have experienced lunch on the beach, in a manner similar to that of Bourdain’s final chapter “Perfect” in A Cook’s Tour. As a graduation gift, my father brought me to Aruba for ten days to lather myself up in sun-tan lotion, lapping waves, and the experience of European sun-bathing—which was blissful given the fact that almost every South American, European, and native Aruban I met was gorgeous; and awful, considering there were also pasty white guys shaped like me (albeit a bit bolder than I) hanging it all out there for the world to see.  

Nudity aside, the food was fabulous. Fresh mango-strawberry shakes on flour-like sand, and a quick jaunt over to a Brazilian steakhouse for dinner—add a casino, a beige tuxedo, a Walther PPK and I would have felt like Sean Connery. However, when posed with the question and thought of what is the “perfect meal,” I couldn’t help but be reminded of returning home from pre-school, walking through my front door, plopping myself at the dinner table and waiting for a big ole’ helping of Kraft’s Macaroni and Cheese. My mom would usually have the X-files playing in the background on our little shoe-box of a television while she poured in the noodles, milk, and “cheese product,” cooking what I believed the pinnacle of culinary perfection. While I would usually pour globs of mustard and ketchup on those little macaroni bits once it finally made its way to my plate (a combination of sauces that I feel no guilt for, even now), the delicious, golden-orange mess that I would devour to the monotonous tones of Mulder and Skully was my idea of the perfect meal. It filled me up, put me to sleep, and all the while I could watch TV while we ate. Not bad for two dollars a box.